EDITORIAL — Rewarding murder

As soon as Rodrigo Duterte assumed the presidency, unverified reports had started circulating about law enforcers receiving financial and other forms of rewards including promotions for every drug suspect killed.

The only problem was the lack of witnesses and material evidence that could elevate the stories beyond hearsay. While Duterte was in power, this seemed impossible. But now that he is no longer president, and more significantly, now that he and his relatives are at odds with the administration, persons are surfacing – some voluntarily, and others perhaps forced by necessity – and shedding light on suspected abuses in his so-called war on drugs.

Among those who have decided to talk is Royina Garma, who had raised eyebrows when Duterte named her general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office in 2019. Garma opted for early retirement from the Philippine National Police, where she was a colonel, to accept the PCSO post. She replaced retired Navy Maj. Gen. Alexander Balutan, who quit the PCSO amid corruption allegations.

Garma, who started her PNP career as a station commander in Davao City, has parried speculation that a “special relationship” between her and Duterte led to her assignment to the PCSO. She and former PNP colonel Edilberto Leonardo have been tagged by a police officer as the brains behind the 2016 execution of three Chinese drug convicts at the Davao penal colony, and the 2020 murder of PCSO board member Wesley Barayuga, a retired PNP brigadier general who was allegedly about to divulge corruption in the agency.

Summoned before the House of Representatives quad committee, Garma denied these accusations. Last Friday, however, she had her own story to tell. In an affidavit that she read before the quad comm, she provided a detailed account of the alleged reward system in Duterte’s drug war, with Leonardo picked to head a task force that would apply the so-called “Davao model” nationwide. Leonardo identified the persons who would be on the narco list, Garma testified, adding that a tiered system of financial rewards was coursed through Christopher “Bong” Go, at the time Duterte’s special assistant and now senator.

Go has vehemently denied Garma’s story, describing it as a diversion from the serious accusations against her. But the quad comm has summoned his aide Irmina Espino, also known as Muking. Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, Duterte’s first PNP chief, has also denied the reward system, even as he has admitted that he designed Oplan Tokhang, the first phase of the bloody war on drugs. Leonardo has resigned as commissioner of the National Police Commission. Regardless of the motivations behind the congressional probes and witnesses’ testimonies, the nation hopes the truth may finally come out.