Linked to murder and money laundering,Garma seeking US political asylum

Ex-PNP Col. Royina Garma is linked to the 2020 assassination of a general. She was influential in Rodrigo Duterte’s admin then.

She allegedly laundered unexplained wealth to America.

She bared illicit quotas and rewards to slay mere suspects under Duterte’s drug war. She’s a star witness to pin the former president to 36,000 extrajudicial killings in 2016-2022.

Yet Garma is now in the US seeking political asylum.

“What’s she up to?” Rep. Romeo Acop pondered as vice chairman of the House quad comm.

On Aug. 28, Garma already tried to flee. That’s after she was named in quad comm hearings as the Cebu City police chief when 198 were killed. Purchasing a plane ticket in Japan, she was rejected when US authorities informed the airline that her visa had been cancelled.

Garma returned to Manila to cooperate with the quad comm. In two explosive affidavits, she divulged that:

(1) In June 2016 president-elect Duterte asked her as Davao City police station head to nationalize their local drug war. Declining, she endorsed Col. Edilberto Leonardo, whom Duterte elevated.

(2) Duterte had set quotas and rewards to kill porch-climbers and pickpockets as far back as 2012-2015 when he was mayor. Through police-bodyguards, he twice gave Garma P20,000 for slaying thieves in her jurisdiction.

(3) The president listed drug suspects for liquidation, with rewards ranging from P20,000 to P100,000 to P1 million based on underworld rank.

(4) Cebu City Capt. Kenneth Albotra had bragged to her having assassinated Tanauan, Batangas mayor Antonio Halili.

Garma’s tip on Albotra led to more discoveries. A fall guy in the Halili murder pointed up that Albotra was caught on CCTV casing the spot where the victim was to be shot. Halili’s July 2018 killing became the model for the December 2020 murder of Los Baños, Laguna mayor Caesar Perez.

Quad comm co-chairman Rep. Dan Fernandez dug up details on the two assassinations:

• Getaway vans bore fake but almost similar license plate numbers: AHO 3044 in Halili’s and ACA 4033 in Perez’s.

• Both mayors were shot by marksmen with 5.56-mm M16s.

• Both were belatedly included in Malacañang’s drug list a month after their killings.

It turned out that Albotra and two sharpshooter sergeants were assigned from PNP-Cebu City to Calamba, Laguna for 23 days in June 2018. They reported to Drug Enforcement Unit in Calamba, which adjoins Tanauan to the west and Los Baños to the south.

Albotra returned to Cebu City after only six days, in time for Garma’s assumption as police chief, July 1, 2018. Three days later he allegedly bragged to Garma about his role in Halili’s “negation.” Albotra denied any wrongdoing, Fernandez said.

But Lt. Col. Santie Mendoza of PNP Drug Enforcement Group had a worse revelation to quad comm. He confessed to have hired vigilante boss Nelson Mariano to find gunmen to do in retired PNP Gen. Wesley Barayuga in 2020.

Reputed as “Mr. Clean” of PMA Class 1983, Barayuga was invited to be Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office board secretary by batchmate chairman Anselmo Pinili. Garma was then general manager.

Quad comm’s Acop summarized Mendoza’s admission:

Barayuga constantly barred Garma’s licensing of illegal Peryahan ng Bayan to her fellow-graduates of PNP Academy. Garma put up a P300,000 reward to “neutralize” Barayuga. Duterte’s Napolcom commissioner Leonardo ordered the kill (which he denied).

Barayuga was ambushed a few blocks from PCSO’s Mandaluyong office on July 30, 2020. He was driving a staff vehicle Garma issued to him, supposedly for easy identification. By coincidence, the Mandaluyong police chief then was Garma’s PNPA batchmate Col. Hector Grijaldo.

A month later in August 2020, Barayuga’s name was inserted in the drug list as a “high-value target.”

Acop, himself a retired PNP general and comptroller, further checked out Garma. He elicited admissions in the quad comm that:

• Garma’s ex-husband Col. Roland Vilela, PNP attaché in California, had broken rules in allowing personal cash to be delivered to him by diplomatic pouch.

• Vilela’s “runner” in Manila, Capt. Delfinito Anuba, acknowledged exchanging huge amounts of pesos into dollars for dispatch to Vilela.

• Caches of pesos came from Sgt. Enecito Ubales, Garma’s first cousin and bodyguard.

As of press time yesterday, Garma was still in US Immigration custody, Justice Secretary Jesus Remulla told this column. Remulla a week ago had offered her witness protection in the case against Duterte. Prosecutors are piling up evidence of crimes against humanity, separate from the International Criminal Court’s.

Prosecutor general Richard Fadullon has formed a team of ten prosecutors, assisted by the NBI, to review cold cases of EJKs. One of those is Barayuga’s slaying.

To bolster her bid for US political asylum, Garma must prove that she’s a political refugee whose life is in peril. But for Philippine authorities, she’s a vital witness in EJKs. Also a suspect in Barayuga’s murder and in money laundering.

Her case is akin to agriculture usec. Jocjoc Bolante’s in 2008. Bolante was found liable for doling out P726-million campaign cash to congressmen in the guise of fertilizer subsidies. He flew to America on pretext of political persecution. The US kicked him back to Manila. Similar too to ex-Comelec chief Andres Bautista’s.

Exposed by his wife for multimillion-dollar unexplained wealth, Bautista was impeached in 2017. He cried political vendetta and fled for US sanctuary. Last Aug. 8 he was indicted in Florida for taking and laundering $1-million bribe from election automator Smartmatic starting 2015. If found guilty, he faces 80 years in prison.

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