FORMER National Bureau of Investigation Director Jaime Santiago has clarified that the so‑called “Operation Romanov” was originally a statement directed at the Marcos family — not something linked to threats against Vice President Sara Duterte.
Santiago headed the NBI from June 2024 to January 2025, including the period when the Vice President made controversial remarks in an online press conference in November 2024, where she stated she had contacted someone to target President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta‑Marcos, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez if harm came to her first.
According to Santiago, the term first surfaced in January 2024 when Davao City Mayor Baste Duterte spoke at a local forum. He recalled that the younger Duterte warned the President to reflect on the fate of the Romanov family and what befell the Marcoses in 1986 during the People Power Revolution. At that time, the phrase was clearly meant as a caution directed at the sitting administration, not as a claim about risks facing the Vice President.
Santiago expressed surprise when vlogger Princess Maui later cited “Oplan Romanov” during the Vice President’s online briefing, presenting it as an alleged plot against Duterte herself. “Oplan Romanov was Baste’s warning to the President and to the first family. Why did it become VP Sara’s? It’s not VP Sara’s,” he emphasized in a Wednesday interview. He also pointed out that the Vice President herself acknowledged during that same press conference that it was only the second time she had heard the term mentioned.
The former NBI chief’s account offers new context amid ongoing debates in the impeachment trial over what the phrase means and how it was used. It underscores questions over how statements originally intended as a warning were later framed as evidence of danger to the Vice President, and whether such shifts in narrative align with the facts of the case.
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