Impunity

Bombshell after bombshell, the House of Representatives’ quad committee hearings have been unearthing all the bad and the ugly that characterized Rody Duterte’s administration – from POGOs to crimes to illegal drugs.

Whereas during Rody’s time, all these stories were told only in hushed whispers in coffee shops or behind closed doors and dismissed as mere conspiracy theories, now, these dirty secrets are coming out in the open because of the joint committee hearings.

Royina Garma

One big bombshell was a witness who tagged former Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office general manager Royina Garma as the mastermind in the killing of a senior PCSO official.

It’s a serious crime and if true, it shows the kind of impunity that existed during Rody’s time – of how his bloody drug war encouraged, if not empowered, police and uniformed personnel to resort to violence to get rid of enemies.

The accusations against Garma – which she has, not surprisingly, denied – are serious and jaw-dropping and it’s hard to imagine it to be true, but witnesses have come out.

She has been accused of involvement in the execution of three Chinese drug traffickers at the Davao penal colony in August 2016, the early days of the Duterte administration and, more recently, police Lt. Col. Santie Mendoza tagged Garma and Commissioner Edilberto Leonardo of the National Police Commission as the masterminds in the murder of PCSO board secretary Wesley Barayuga in July 2020.

Leonardo is also among the police officers tagged in Rody Duterte’s bloody drug war.

In a scene straight out of a crime movie, Barayuga was shot dead while driving home in a PCSO service car provided by Garma, supposedly because he had knowledge of anomalies in the PCSO during Garma’s time.

These anomalies allegedly translated to billions in losses for the PCSO, supposedly a revenue-generating agency.

Garma was also accused of turning her PCSO stint into a family affair, hiring relatives and family members to the agency even if they weren’t exactly qualified. She was also accused of funneling PCSO funds to a party-list she formed.

The layers and layers of allegations coming out of the hearings are ugly and overwhelming.

For one, as I earlier mentioned, we can see more clearly now the kind of impunity that existed during Rody’s time.

When he put police and uniformed personnel as heads of many agencies and state-owned corporations, he said it’s because he wanted to clean up the bureaucracy and instill discipline.

Clearly, as in the PSCO’s case, that was not what happened.

And then there’s the issue of rampant corruption in state agencies, with billions in taxpayers’ money lost in anomalies.

Early on, the quad committee hearings also bared witnesses that linked the Dutertes to the drug trade, reinforcing the conspiracy theory that all along, the bloody drug was meant to simply eliminate political foes and competition in the drug business.

Could that be the reason why at the height of the drug war, way back in 2018, a P6.4-billion shabu haul entered the country?

All these allegations are serious and must be followed through with the proper charges.

While the intention of the quad committee hearings has been questioned for being a political tool to destroy the House of the Dutertes, this democratic exercise has no doubt exposed the blatant corruption and impunity that existed during the previous administration.

The public will be waiting for the next steps – such as the filing of criminal charges – to bring the perpetrators to justice.

The bloody drug war

This is especially necessary in the case of those involved in the bloody drug war, which left thousands of victims dead.

Bringing these perpetrators to justice would send a message to state forces that there should be no room for extrajudicial killings in our society.

I have personally seen victims of the drug war years back when I tagged along with the night beat, not for a story but to bear witness to what was happening.

I saw a young man, Jj, whose head hung loosely out of a blue body bag. His face was smeared with dirt and covered with blood – thick, red and fresh, as I wrote in April 2023 in a previous column titled “Like Jesus crucified.”

The men from the funeral parlor carried Jj’s lifeless body to a waiting vehicle. They found him in a dark and cramped shanty home in the slums of Victory Avenue in Quezon City where a policeman’s bullet killed him.

His body was strewn grotesquely on a decrepit multicab, like a slaughtered animal. It was a haunting sight.

This was way back in 2017.

Now, hopefully with all the quad committee hearings, achieving justice for victims like Jj is closer to reality.

The public is glued and waiting as well. Politiko.com.ph summed it well, “Lavender Fields!” referring to s’s new teleserye on prime time.

But this must mean more to Filipinos than just our daily dose of entertainment. As an old adage goes, let justice be done though the heavens fall.

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.