Photo from RTV Malacanang/YouTube
Cut the dramatics. Sara Duterte, Bongbong Marcos and Martin Romualdez should just fight each other to political death.
Sara milked dry the publicity ops of her posting of bail at the Quezon City court last Saturday. Begging reporters to not leave her side, she claimed to feel unsafe surrounded by cops at the courthouse.
“Pakiramdam ko papatayin ako anytime tapos ‘sorry’ lang ang sasabihin sa akin kasi, ‘We do not know but we did our jobs.’ Naalala niyo ba si Ninoy Aquino? Napatay sa hagdanan,” she emoted on news cams. “Sino ang mananagot kapag namatay ako? Wala akong tiwala sa pulis, wala akong tiwala sa korte.”
All those tended to hide the facts:
• Sara has 400 bodyguards in the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group, the only VP to get such privilege. VPSPG consists of soldiers and policemen. It surveils, sweeps and restricts movements at her destinations well before she arrives. It costs taxpayers P240 million a year in salaries. OVP spent additional P55-million special duty allowances for it in July 2022-June 2024.
• Sara posted bail because indicted for grave threats in November 2024 to assassinate BBM and Martin.
• “Grave threats” is also one of four impeachment raps against Sara. Aside from her livestreamed admission to have hired an assassin, she also demonstrated in October 2024 how she’d behead BBM.
• Sara’s father Rody Duterte paid off PNP for his bloody war on drugs. Cops officially killed 6,252 pushers for resisting arrest using rusty .38-caliber revolvers. There’s no record or repository of those “confiscated” handguns.
• Ex-Davao city cop Arturo Lascañas swore to have formed the Davao Death Squad that killed pushers on Duterte’s and later Sara’s orders.
• Since March 2025 Sara often says her father shouldn’t have been flown to the International Criminal Court at The Hague for trial for crimes against humanity. Only last July 29 she told Rody supporters near The Hague jail: “There’s no breakdown of the judicial system in the Philippines. Our judicial courts are functioning. We can go to court, file a complaint, the judge can hear it, the judge can decide.” Now she claims otherwise.
• As Davao city mayor, Sara punched in the face and nape court sheriff Abe Andres in July 2011. The latter was enforcing the judge’s order to evict squatters from a private lot.
• Ninoy Aquino was slain by aviation security airmen at the Manila Airport tarmac in August 1983. He had returned from US exile to convince political archrival dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. to give up power. Heroified today, Ninoy knew he’d likely be killed upon arrival, yet still flew to Manila.
Sara wanted to be detained at Camp Crame for photo ops in handcuffs and behind bars, Interior Sec. Jonvic Remulla disclosed Monday. “Ang drama nila, gusto nila makulong siya,” he told reporters. “Hindi kami pumayag. We accorded her the respect that her position deserves.”
Arrangements were then made for the QC Court to open on Saturday for Sara’s bail posting. Judge Maria Angelica P. De Ramos admitted to be Sara’s sis in Sororitas Reginae Juris at San Beda College of Law.
At the courthouse some onlookers chanted, “Duterte, Duterte!”
Two women were let through the phalanx of guards to hug her and plead, “Magpakatatag ka para sa mga anak namin.”
Also on Monday, Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla ordered Martin arrested for P7.44-billion flood fund plunder. Martin was in hospital for cardiovascular ailment and anxiety.
Remulla’s brother Sec. Jonvic enforced the arrest. He took Martin’s mugshot lying on the bed draped with an orange detainee t-shirt, then posted policemen outside the hospital suite.
The Remullas and Martin are fraternity mates in UP Upsilon Sigma Phi. Jonvic, who joined in 1987, and Martin, in 1988, were campus contemporaries.
Fans tout Sara for president in 2028. Pollsters rank her in the lead against undeclared presidential opponents.
BBM and Sara ran as UniTeam in 2022. Both skipped presidential and VP candidates’ debates except for that sponsored by Sonshine Media Network International of Duterte pal Apollo Quiboloy. Quiboloy is presently detained in Pasig for non-bailable human trafficking, sexual abuse and child abuse. The US wants him extradited for the same offenses.
BBM and Sara had a falling out starting 2024.
BBM’s son Rep. Sandro Marcos recently told a TV talk show that he “kinda saw” UniTeam’s collapse. He attributed it to “deep-seated power struggles and political maneuvering by various factions rather than a single person.”
In the Prime Radio-TV interview Aug. 8, he recalled that during the 2022 presidential campaign, he and BBM were called to a Malacañang meeting with Rody Duterte. After being made to wait two hours, Duterte sent three reps to tell them that under a BBM presidency they should be let to name the executive secretary, Senate president, House speaker and key Cabinet posts.
Sandro recalled that upon leaving Malacañang his dad told him, “Alam mo, kulang na lang papatayin na nila ako.”
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