The vice-president’s backtracking of her comment about hiring an assassin to kill Marcos Jnr is linked to midterm elections, analysts say.

Philippine law officials on Tuesday summoned vice president Sara Duterte for questioning over her weekend statements that she had contracted someone to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. if she were to be killed.

Philippine authorities handed a subpoena to Vice President Sara Duterte’s office Tuesday, inviting her to answer investigators' questions after she publicly threatened to have the president, his wife and the House of Representatives speaker assassinated if she were killed in an unspecified plot herself.