Sara and Digong declared national security threats

Vice President Sara Duterte and former president Rodrigo Roa Duterte have been ousted from the National Security Council, the Philippines' highest policy-making body advising the chief executive of the land, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Romualdez Marcos Jr., on matters of national security.

- TONY LOPEZ

The motive for removal from the NSC of the father-daughter tandem is quite obvious. Sara and Digong are national security threats.

One obvious question is: being national security threats, will Sara and Digong be arrested?

Analysts say Sara will most likely be impeached, or removed as Vice President, by whatever means legal and necessary, not necessarily "neutralized," the Duterte family's favorite jargon when trying to eliminate a threat or a pest for good.

Will Digong be arrested? Ask the International Criminal Court in The Hague where a case for crime against humanity against the former president – and possibly, including Sara whose Davao mayorship was marked by equally violent extrajudicial killings – is being considered.

Per Wikipedia, crimes against humanity are acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, such as murder, deportation, torture, and rape. The ICC prosecutes perpetrators even if the crimes were not committed in times of war.

By law and practice, it is the Philippine President's prerogative to choose who should advise him on matters of national security.

Sara revealed during a press conference she imagined to cut off the President's head, after she was angered by BBM's refusal to give his watch to a graduating cadet who asked for the presidential timepiece as a graduation gift. The VP also disclosed on live television that she had hired assassins to kill BBM in the event she herself was assassinated. That makes Sara Duterte a terrorist. And terrorists, by definition, are national security threats.

On Nov. 23, 2024, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin declared Sara's assassination rant as "an active threat."