By Manny Mogato
(October 12, 2024) — At 5 a.m., one sunny day in May, Royina Garma got a phone call asking her to report to the residence of the Davao City mayor, who days before won the presidency in 2016.
Garma was told Rodrigo Duterte, who was to be sworn in as president on June 30, wanted to create a police task force to carry out a genocidal campaign against illegal drugs patterned after the Davao City experience.
More than 1,400 people died in the city’s war on drugs from the late 1980s until 2016, based on documentation made by a Roman Catholic priest.
Duterte was planning to take Davao City’s war on drugs on a national scale by creating a special police task force.
Garma divulges Duterte’s plan, including the organizational structure, the operations, and the rewards for killing drug personalities, during the latest joint committee hearing before the House of Representatives.
She submitted a sworn statement before the lower house detailing her knowledge about the drug war.
It was an unexpected turn of events. She had been denying her role in the drug war and her special relationship with the former president.
From a lowly Cebu City chief of police in the middle of 2019, Duterte also appointed her as the general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
She gave specific details on how the drug war operations worked, from how the targets or drug lists were compiled until the payment for every drug personality killed was made,
However, she omitted her name in the drug war operations’ structure.
During her meeting with Duterte at his house, she was asked to look for a reliable police officer, preferably a member of the religious group Iglesia ni Cristo, to head a task force to carry out a nationwide anti-illegal drug campaign.
Garma suggested her upperclassman, Colonel Edilberto Leonardo, a member of the Iglesia and an experienced police field operative.
Leonardo worked closely with Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, the special presidential assistant, before he was elected as a senator in 2019.
Funds for Leonardo’s drug war operations reportedly came from Malacañang, funneled through the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) office under Bong Go.
One of Bong Go’s aides at the PMS office, Irimina Espino, a.k.a. Muking, was responsible for sending funds to Leonardo, which were used for anti-illegal drugs operations and rewards.
Leonardo ran a secret and parallel police organization dedicated to carrying out the bloody and brutal war on drugs.
Leonardo was only the commander of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in the Davao region. Still, he has authority over the entire PNP, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, and other law enforcement agencies.
According to Garma, Leonardo briefed all incoming PNP chiefs, intelligence officers, and other agencies regarding the drug war.
During the same legislative inquiry, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency said the former president had his own drug lists with more than 3,000 names. PDEA had an original drug list compiled by the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG).
Duterte’s and CIDG’s lists were combined to create a new target under the former president’s term.
PDEA said it only got a copy of the list in January 2017 — which still needs to be validated — when Duterte was already telling the public about the drug list when he assumed the presidency in 2016.
Garma said Duterte probably got his list from the Bureau of Corrections, where Chinese and local drug lords were detained. Based on Duterte’s list, Leonardo worked with three dismissed police officers and a civilian in running the secret and parallel police organization to carry out the drug war.
In previous congressional hearings, Leonardo denied any involvement in the drug war. Even some of Garma’s classmates, who were brought into the secret group, had denied knowledge and involvement in the drug war. Garma said she brought several classmates to pay a courtesy call on Duterte at his office in Panacan a few days before his inauguration.
Some of Leonardo’s classmates in the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) class of 1996 and Garma’s classmates from the PNPA class 1997 formed the core group behind the war on drugs operations. Garma said all matters about the war on drugs passed through Leonardo, particularly the target list and funding.
Some of her classmates had been linked to extrajudicial killings connected with the drug war, like Lito Patay, who was the Quezon City police station commander responsible for 108 people killed from July 2016 to July 2017, and Hector Grijaldo, who was linked to the assassination of retired general Wesley Barayuga.
Another classmate, Gerard Bantag, has been in hiding for the murder of a journalist, Percy Lapid.
The four congressional committees looking into the extrajudicial killings, the offshore gaming operations, and human trafficking had taken Garma’s confession with a grain of salt because she was only pointing to Bong Go, Colonel Leonardo, and some of his subordinates as involved in the drug war.
She was also reluctant to admit she got special favors from the president when assigned to Davao.
Garma has yet to reveal the truth about her involvement and entire drug war operations under the Duterte administration.
As the congressional inquiry progressed, lawmakers have been unearthing shocking details about the war on drugs. Leonardo’s role in the secret parallel police organization was the biggest revelation in the latest congressional hearing.
Senators Ronald dela Rosa and Bong Go’s roles were also exposed in Duterte’s war on drugs.
Garma said she feared for her life but decided to cut clean after a week of reflection while detained at the House of Representatives.
However, the lawmakers were not 100% convinced and wanted her to tell all.
Antipolo Congressman Romeo Acop had one piece of advice to Garma: “Nabasa na ang paa mo, maligo ka na. Ibuhos mo na ang alam mo.”\
*The views expressed by the columnist do not necessarily reflect that of the media organization.
