DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 14 October) – Former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is running for an 8th term as Mayor, warned in a press conference on October 6 that those involved in illegal drugs and other crimes better get out of the city or he will kill them. “Do not expect na kung ako ang ma-mayor, mag-inkwentro tayo, bubuhayin ko kayo. Talagang papatayin ko kayo” (Do not expect that if I am the mayor and I encounter you, that I will make you live. I will really kill you).
He dared human rights defenders to mount a campaign “wag kayong bumoto kay Duterte” (do not vote for Duterte).
Five days after his press conference and four days after he filed his certificate of candidacy for Mayor, Royina Garma, a retired police officer who headed his Anti-Vice unit in the late 1990s, served as station commander in Sasa and Santa Ana, and was implicated in the complaints filed against Duterte in the International Criminal Court (ICC), alleged in an affidavit that Duterte orchestrated the nationwide implementation of his controversial “war on drugs” by replicating the Davao template, a system involving “payments and rewards.”
In response to a congressman’s query, Garma claimed she was not familiar with the specific amounts “but true, there is an amount per level, I think Colonel (Edilberto) Leonardo can explain this better what the specific amount is, because I might be wrong if I say that it is P50,000 or P100,000 or P1,000,000. But there is a corresponding amount per level.”
“May amount po, Mr. Chair, from what I understand, is starting from P20,000 to P1,000,000. But I’m not familiar sa mga bracketing, Mr. Chair,” she said.
Duterte has yet to issue a statement on Garma’s confession.
In a four-page affidavit she submitted to and read at the hearing of the Joint Committee on Dangerous Drugs, Public Order and Safety, Human Rights, and Public Accounts of the House of Representatives (Quad Comm), Garma, whom Duterte appointed as general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) in 2019, admitted that Duterte sought her help to look for someone capable of bringing the “Davao Model” on a national scale during an early morning meeting at his residence in Doña Luisa Subdivision here in May 2016. Duterte was elected President on May 9, 2016.
She said Duterte was looking for a police officer or operative who was a member of Iglesia ni Cristo (INC).
Garma explained that this “Davao Model” involved three levels of payments or rewards: reward if the suspect is killed, funding of planned operations or COPLANS, and refund of operational expenses.
She said that she informed the President that she did not know anyone who met the qualifications as she had never been assigned outside this city or served at the national headquarters of the Philippine National Police.
But she added that she remembered her upperclassman Edilberto Leonardo, an INC member and officer assigned to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Manila.
Garma said that Duterte summoned Leonardo at the Royal Mandaya Hotel in Davao for a meeting and instructed him to “organize a task force” similar to the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF).
Garma said it was Leonardo who prepared the proposal, which was “routed through Bong Go,” detailing the task force’s operations including an overview of the drug landscape in the country.
She said Leonardo was then reassigned to Davao, where he assumed as chief of the CIDG-Davao and subsequently appointed as a commissioner of the National Police Commission (NAPOLCOM).
Leonardo resigned from NAPOLCOM last Oct. 4 after being implicated in the war on drugs.
Before he was elected senator in 2019, Christian Lawrence “Bong” Go was Duterte’s aide since 1998. He also served as Special Assistant to the President from 2016 until he resigned in 2018 to run for Senator.
“I have no participation whatsoever, directly or indirectly, in the operational requirements of the war on drugs,” he said in a statement on October 12.
He said his office had nothing to do with the operations and of the police and that he did not personally handle the money of the Office of the President because that was not part of his tasks then.
Go is seeking reelection as Senator. And so is Ronald dela Rosa, who was Duterte’s first appointed chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Dela Rosa denied Garma’s allegations that there was a “rewards” system in the war on drugs.
“Ewan ko, hindi ko naman hawak ang babaeng iyan, hindi man close sa akin yan. Ang relationship namin, ay bilang chief (PNP), subordinate, yun lang, wala naman kaming specific relationship (I don’t know, I don’t have control of her, we’re not even close. Our relationship was me as chief PNP and her as a subordinate. That’s all, we don’t have a specific relationship),” he said in an interview with Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC)-owned Sonshine Media Network International that was posted Saturday midnight.
“Hindi ko alam ang mga sinasabi niya, hindi ko pa narinig (I don’t know what she’s saying, I haven’t heard about it),” he said.
In her affidavait, Garma said that once the task force became operational, all COPLAN funds, refunds for operational expenses, and rewards for agents were processed through the bank accounts of Peter Parungo, a former detainee of CIDG, while Lester Berganio, a private citizen, maintained a comprehensive list of drug personalities in the Philippines.
Along with Parungo, she said Leonardo tapped discharged police officers Rommel Bactat, Rodel Cerbo, and Michael Palma to collect and verify information “provided by police officers in the field concerning arrests and/or deaths of individuals named in the list of drug personalities, and creating a summary report.”
She said that these individuals were the “trusted personnel” tapped by Leonardo to serve as operatives of the task force.
“All of these reports would then be encoded and compiled by Lester Berganio. The compilation is thereafter elevated to Leonardo who will decide what “Level” the arrest and/or killing was and its corresponding reward,” she said.
She added that “Leonardo had the final authority to determine who would be included on the list of drug personalities and to classify their threat levels, as well as the discretion to remove individuals from the list.” (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
