(A closer look) Garma PCSO stint fueled the hydra of crime under Duterte

Then-President Rodrigo Duterte’s 2019 appointment of favorite operative Royina Garma as managing director of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) provided an important flank in the takeover of crime cartels.

This conquest of the underworld, which took place for decades in Duterte’s hometown of Davao, intensified nationwide after 2016 as he hammered the country’s democratic institutions from all sides.

Garma and Edilberto Leonardo, another retired police officer, are involved in the 2016 killing of three Chinese nationals in Davao Penal Colony. Now senior police officers are linking both to other crimes, including murder in the PCSO and possible money laundering.

It is a mosaic of bloodshed and plunder. Duterte’s loyal lieutenants marched like crime hydra into key posts, stretching their tentacles to conquer new territories, aided by a bloodbath that stretched from slums to mountain hamlets.

Executive branch officials and lawmakers – many of them former Duterte activists – would have us believe that crime thrives because of weak laws.

The big picture reveals another truth: Duterte’s best and brightest officers were criminals and many others, fools who blindly followed orders. Law enforcement officers committed monstrous acts under the cover of the administration, aided by a bureaucracy that ignored laws for the benefit of Duterte and his comrades.

In short, a whole-country approach at the service of crime.

Let’s break it down.

Conspiracy to murder

Police Lt. Col. Santie Mendoza confessed to planning the assassination of PCSO Board Secretary Wesley Barayuga on Leonardo’s orders, with operational intelligence from Police Sergeant Enecito Ubales Jr., a cousin who served in Garma’s security detail.

Mendoza’s affidavit shows direct lines of communication with Leonardo and Garma’s security assistant. It also shows how Duterte’s drug list was used to commit and condone a crime.

He details the levels of premeditation: the allocation of a vehicle to Barayuga while his use of public transportation made things difficult; last-minute tasks to give the affected team time to get into position; and, most chilling of all, the order to take him within the confines of Mandaluyong City, where Col. Hector Grijaldo, Garma’s classmate at the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA), headed the police force.

Why did he do it? Because he was told that Barayuga was on Duterte’s drug watch list, he heard that refrain again and again in a year of hearings.

The murder of a general normally leads to a massive hunt for the perpetrators. Grijaldo left a vague report, glossing over the Small Town Lottery (STL) mess that Barayuga was investigating, and instead highlighting, without supporting details, the victim’s alleged involvement with drugs. The then National Capital Region Police Director and later National Police Chief Debold Sinas, Garma’s boss of Region VII, had also put forward that theory.

Barayuga did not appear on any drug list while alive. His name, PDEA officials say, appeared after the killing.

Brutal machinations

Former PCSO chairman Anselmo Simeon Pinili told House Proders that the most likely motive for the killing was Barayuga’s refusal to issue certificates for new STL franchises without approval from all board members.

That’s damned. Garma had been shutting down STLs for months, ostensibly to review corrupt deals. She placed Ubales’ wife, Emily, at the helm of the STL core group that greenlit existing franchises and applicants.

Lt. Col. Chuck Barando, who served under Garma when she led the Cebu City Police Department, was also in that small circle. His wife was among the top nominees for the STL Partylist – Samahan ng Totoong Larong May Puso. Garma founded the group and channeled at least 2 million euros to boost their 2022 campaign – a clear conflict of interest.

Had the party-list organization won, it would have pushed for expansion of PCSO ownership to include the then illegal number games.

Garma, Duterte’s hunting dog, did not lift a finger to investigate the murder in her home.

Pinili, a retired officer and Barayuga’s “mistah” in the Philippine Military Academy Class (PMA) of ’83, chose to take his concerns to then-Special Assistant to the President and now Senator Bong Go, then fell back into silence .

Then-Interior Secretary and now National Security Advisor Eduardo Año, also from the same PMA class, had refuted Sinas’ claim but did nothing further.

Hydra path to legitimacy

Duterte and Sinas undermined the protocol by forcing Garma on Cebu City despite opposition from then-Mayor Tommy Osmena.

Explaining his position, the former local executive presented lawmakers with a 2018 report showing that Garma received P1 million in illegal gaming payola weekly as head of the Davao PNP Investigation and Detection Group.

Osmeña personally informed Duterte of the information. The answer: talk to Bong Go.

Go facilitated Garma’s application for the PCSO post. He was also responsible for going in and out of Malacañang meetings with Duterte.

In the PCSO and in the Philippine Online Gaming Operators (POGO) industry that harbors other criminal groups, the hydra trail is clear: drug money supported the takeover of illegal gambling networks and, in the case of POGOs, exploited the technical and business infrastructure for global purposes. fraud and money laundering; law enforcement agencies acted as enforcers and protectors.

The executive branch paved the way for legitimacy through policies and Duterte’s orders.

The PCSO gave the government a deep well that lawmakers believe funded the PNP killing reward system. The Commission on Audit has pointed out the lack of reporting on the actual use of approximately P600 million in PNP charitable funds.

Another sinister side of the executive branch emerged during the quad-comm hearing in the House of Representatives on September 27, featuring Garma’s former husband, Colonel Roland Vilela.

The couple’s marriage was annulled after he was twice linked to sexual abuse of women under his care. That didn’t stop Vilela from climbing. He was appointed police attaché on the West Coast, where he bought a branch of a popular restaurant.

When lawmakers questioned the origins of his money, the use of the diplomatic police pouch for personal use emerged. So did revelations that Vilela and Garma continued to work together.

Police Captain Delfinito Anuba admitted to converting pesos into dollars for the duo, with orders from Vilela via Viber calls.

He received pesos for conversion from Ubelas “at the PCSO,” and then returned them in the form of US dollars. There was one bag with P30 million, another with P20 million, plus several other exchanges in smaller amounts.

Anuba also converted a P500,000 package sent through an emissary of Vilela’s current wife and delivered it to the police budget office in charge of sending money to the US.

Año was DILG secretary in charge of the PNP at the time. Lawmakers should also summon him as they unravel the exit path of millions of people from the PCSO.

Duterte justified his bloodlust as a way to “save” the country from a narco-state. We have since learned that his beloved agents and aides essentially made the Philippines just that, adding illegal gambling and fraud to the top tier. – Rappler.com