Vice President Sara Duterte on Wednesday said she was never friends with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., her running-mate in the 2022 elections.

In an ambush interview with House reporters, Duterte said she only got acquainted with Marcos when they became running-mates.

“Hindi naman kasi kami talaga nagkausap niyan. Hindi kami magkaibigan,” Duterte said of Marcos.

“Nagkakilala lang kami dahil naging running-mate kami. Bago pa man kami naging running-mate, hindi na kami nag-uusap. Nag-uusap lang kami during campaign at dahil sa trabaho noon,” she added.

(We didn’t really talk with each other. We were not friends. We just got acquainted when we became running-mates. But before that we didn’t really talk with each other. We would just talk during the campaign as part of work.)

Duterte, however, said she has close ties with the President’s sister, Senator Imee Marcos.

“Ang kaibigan ko talaga ay si Senator Imee Marcos. Kilala niya ako since 2012,” she said.

(It’s Senator Imee Marcos who is my real friend. She has known me since 2012.)

The Marcos-Duterte tandem, dubbed Uniteam, won overwhelmingly in the 2022 elections, with Marcos getting 31 million votes and Duterte 32 million.

Duterte was appointed Department of Education (DepEd) secretary on June 30, 2022 but resigned in June this year. Despite her resignation, she had said that she and Marcos “are still friendly with each other on a personal level.”

The Vice President previously said her resignation from DepEd was made in consideration of the department’s best interest, but recently revealed that it was because of Speaker Martin Romualdez and House Committee on Appropriations chair Rep. Elizaldy Co “controlling” national budget allocations.

GMA News Online has reached out to Malacañang through the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) for comment, but it has yet to respond as of posting time.  —KBK, GMA Integrated News