Senator Alan Cayetano: Be 'circumspect and careful' in interpreting Duterte, Marcos remarks

Senator-Judge Alan Peter Cayetano on Tuesday urged his fellow senator-judges to exercise caution before drawing conclusions from statements made by members of both the Duterte and Marcos families that have surfaced during Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial.

Cayetano made the manifestation after former National Bureau of Investigation Cybercrime Division chief Jeremy Lotoc testified that investigators traced the first public mention of "Romanov" to Davao City Mayor Sebastian "Baste" Duterte during a rally in January 2024.

The testimony prompted Senator-Judge Panfilo Lacson to say he had come to believe that the supposed "Operation Romanov," which the Vice President's camp earlier described as a plot against her, was instead a threat directed at the First Family.

Cayetano, however, said that while Mayor Duterte's remarks were relevant to the investigation, they should not automatically be construed as a threat without considering their context.

“If he (Mayor Duterte) was making that threat na ‘maro-Romanov kayo,’ then the Presidential Security Command would’ve filed a case against Baste,” the senator-judge said.

“In the same manner that we have to be fair to the First Family, we have to be fair also to Mayor Baste and to the Dutertes,” he added.

Cayetano said Mayor Duterte's remarks could instead be interpreted as a warning based on historical events involving the Romanov family and the Marcos family's own experience after the 1986 People Power Revolution.

“I’m not close to VP Sara. I’m not close to Mayor Baste,” the senator-judge said. “But my reading ng sinabi ni Mayor Baste is, ‘Pag natulog ka sa gabi, remember the Romanovs.’”

“There’s a thin line between a warning and a threat,” he added.

He also pointed out that it remained uncertain whether Mayor Duterte's earlier reference to the Romanovs and the alleged "Operation Romanov" involving the Vice President referred to the same thing.

“For all we know, narinig ni Mayor Baste na sila ang iro-Romanov kaya binanggit niya pabalik. We don’t know,” Cayetano said.

“So let’s just be circumspect and careful from making conclusions,” he added.