In the world's sixth-largest democracy, the vice-president could be charged as a terrorist for threatening to kill the president.

Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte last weekend made the extraordinary public admission she had ordered an assassin to murder President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr, his wife, and the speaker of the House of Representatives, in the event she herself was killed.

Officials now say Ms Duterte could be charged under controversial anti-terror legislation passed in 2020 by her own father, former president Rodrigo Duterte.

"When you take actions to harm or threaten the life of another person, that is considered terrorism," Philippine Department of Justice spokesperson Jesse Andres told a press conference.

It's the culmination of months of tension between the two former allies now openly at war.

Responding to Ms Duterte's explosive comments, Mr Marcos vowed to fight back: "If planning the assassination of the president is that easy, how much more for ordinary citizens?"

A history of violence

Democracy in the Philippines is vibrant.

Elections held at the national, provincial, municipal and village level are generally considered free and fair.

But the explosive fallout between the country's two most powerful political clans has exposed an embedded culture of violence in its politics.

The Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance's Adele Webb said that culture was rooted in the Philippines' experiences of colonisation — particularly by the United States during the first half of the 20th century.

She said the US claimed to be "teaching the Philippines how to be democratic".

"But violence was very much part of the governing logic of the Americans in the Philippines," she said.

The dictatorship of Mr Marcos' father — Ferdinand Marcos Sr — is remembered for a period of martial law in the 1970s and '80s marked by extrajudicial killings, torture and forced disappearances.

Violence continued into the Philippines' democratisation era.

During an infamous gubernatorial election campaign in 2009, 58 people were gunned down — around half of whom were journalists — in the worst single act of political violence in Philippine history now known as the Maguindanao massacre.

The Duterte presidency between 2016 and 2022 saw the extrajudicial killings of up to 30,000 people as part of a brutal "war on drugs".

And ahead of next year's mid-term elections, in which the Marcoses and Dutertes will look to shore up their power, the murders have already begun.

The national Commission on Human Rights announced in August it was investigating the slayings of a local vice mayor and vice mayoral candidate in the country's restive south.

Asia's most dangerous place to fight for the environment

Journalists, activists and others who seek to hold the powerful to account are other major targets for deadly violence in the Philippines.

At least 117 journalists were killed there over the past three decades, according to UNESCO, of which 81 cases remain unsolved.

It is the most dangerous place in Asia to be a defender of the environment, with more environmental activists killed in the Philippines than anywhere else in the region over the past 11 years.

Rights groups have raised the alarm at intensifying "red-tagging": a practice whereby government agents accuse human rights and labour advocates of being "terrorist" sympathisers of the Philippines' long-running communist insurgency.

"Activists and other critical voices are being red-tagged and identified as targets by the government, and then pursued online," Amnesty International's tech director Damini Satija said in October.

The terrorist label is granted credence by Mr Duterte's 2020 anti-terror legislation, which rights groups argue allows authorities to label virtually any government critic a "terrorist" — thus making them fair game for extrajudicial execution.

'Always a need for an enemy'

Family dynasties have a stranglehold on Filipino politics — and this week was a reminder that some at the top are militaristic and fond of violence.

Some 654 guns are owned by five members of the Duterte clan alone, an investigation by Filipino media outlet Rappler found earlier this year.

Mr Duterte, who recently said he ran anti-drug death squads when mayor of the city of Davao, was found to own at least 363 registered weapons.

Sara Duterte has 28 guns registered in her name.

"Violence has always been an essential part of their identity as a political dynasty," said University of Philippines Diliman politics professor Aries Arugay.

Perhaps, for the moment at least, that feeling is justified. 

The House of Representatives is investigating the equivalent of $4.2 million in secret expenses by Ms Duterte in 2023.

Mr Duterte's signature drug war, meanwhile, is being investigated by both the Philippines Department of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

Still, in the wake of her threat, Mr Marcos said on Friday that impeaching Ms Duterte over her threats would take up time in Congress and not make a difference to the lives of Filipinos.

"Why waste time on it?" he said.

Indeed, the Philippines is still recovering after six tropical storms hit the country during November alone, killing at least 171 and displacing many thousands.

For some, the solidarity between ordinary people in one of Asia's most climate-vulnerable nations offers hope.

"There are people working really hard building peace movements, or supplying recovery needs when there are floods," Dr Webb said.

"[They] are trying to fill the vacuum of governance that is not being filled by these political actors who are just completely self-interested."