To save Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio from her regular conniptions, the Marcos Jr. administration should just give her what she wants, as in what Lola wants, Lola gets. After the Philippine National Police (PNP) took out 75 cops from her security force of 433, Sara issued a four-page letter that complained of “political harassment” and even heightened threats to her and her holy family.
She went to the extent of insisting that PNP chief Gen. Rommel Marbil is not a God who knows just how serious the threats to her and her family are. Sara revealed that it was fortunate that a PNP team was refused the chance to case the subdivision where she lives, tagging it as part of harassment but not a plot for assassination? Government might as well agree that she and her brood need the best security force money can buy. For the nonce, multiplying her security force by 10 may provide some semblance of ease on her part. The 4,333 personnel, including women of course, will be with her 24/7, morning, noon and night.
At least six teams of snipers bearing Barrett cal. .50 rifles could provide her some comfort and guarantee that no Filipino Timothy Crook would ever be able to climb some roof to shoot her. Add a Seal Team 6 type of bodyguards who would surveil the waters of Davao and Samal before she gets the greenlight to jetski or go on a moonlight swim. Extra teams may be needed as well to bring the bulletproof blankets to cover her when she rides her big bike in the company of a platoon of Harley Davidson-riding bodyguards.
Sara needs brigades of bodyguards to push people away when they get to be dangerously close to her, even as she professes to love the unshod and those who admire because of her social media posts and the image-builders responsible for prettifying her status. Now that she is howling about threats, how about a security detail to protect her from typhoons, floods and disasters? She may also take a leaf from Ricky Razon and his PrimeInfra, which claimed that their Wawa Dam saved Marikina and the rest of Metro Manila from a bloody deluge, as if the river that gets water only during the rainy season was the savior of the metropolis. It isn’t.
Just the same, Sara’s security detail should have been doubled when she and her family flew out of Manila for Germany as Typhoon Carina battered Luzon. The job of the designated survivor is to survive and survive she did to enjoy wiener schnitzel and a bucket of sausages on the way to a Taylor Swift concert in Deutschland uber Alles. Zimmerman is a name as Jewish and German as Bob Dylan, but Dylan is not a designated survivor but creative talent who never needed bodyguards in Woodstock and New York City.
Sara has been savaged for being absent when the deluge came. He didn’t cancel her vacation, and the victims of the Typhoon Carina came to learn that the Vice President won’t swap a Taylor Swift concert with the humdrum job of helping those who lost their dwellings, their possessions, even their kith and kin, when disaster struck. Just remember what a catastrophic security problem it would be when Sara has to distribute food while surrounded by thousands of flood victims. She might need more than 4,330 security personnel to guarantee her safety and make sure that mud would not soil her shoes.
Wait, Sara has been making a big issue of the 75 cops taken out of her security detail when she still has 31 cops in her protective phalanx with pistols and automatic rifles, much better than the Greek hoplites who were only armed with lances and schooled by Socrates. Her predecessor, Vice President Leni Robredo, only had 78 security men and zero confidential and intelligence fund (CIF) for her entire six dolorous years under the Rodrigo Duterte regime.
The show actually wouldn’t be complete without taking stock of the bleeding hearts at the Senate who want Sara’s 75 cops to be returned, or else Sara could get Davao warriors to secure her. Sens. Robinhood Padilla and Ronald de la Rosa said she deserves a battalion of bodyguards and asked for volunteers. Sen. Imee Marcos wants the 75 cops to return, with an aside that the former president was like a “father” to her even if the former president were not even 10 years older than her. For Imee, the elder Duterte should be secured as well since he fought the New People’s Army (NPA) and is on top of a mythical order of battle (OB.) Incidentally, the elder Duterte has 358 licensed firearms, which can equip three companies.
