Barayuga slay: Duterte’s men played dangerous Game of the Generals
At least three police colonels conspired in murdering a general in 2020, using then-president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war as cover.
Odd coincidences tied a fourth colonel to the heinous crime. Other generals covered it up.
The House quad comm ferreted this out Friday while hearing the 36,000 narco-killings during Duterte’s 2016-2022 tenure.
In tears, PNP Lt. Col. Santie Mendoza confessed to hiring hitmen against PCSO board secretary Wesley Barayuga, a retired PNP general, on July 30, 2020. Seated beside Mendoza, hit squad leader Nelson Mariano confirm the kill.
Mendoza implicated Col. Edilberto Leonardo, Duterte’s appointee to the National Police Commission. He alleged that Col. Royina Garma, then PCSO general manager, arranged the assassination, including the P300,000 prize.
Garma and Leonardo, present at the hearing, denied the capital offense.
Garma was Duterte’s mistress, Rep. Bienvenido Abante said in the televised hearing. He read into the records a column by Duterte’s friend Ramon Tulfo saying so. Newspaperman Tulfo has covered the police for 50 years.
Garma disavowed being Duterte’s moll.
After Barayuga’s slaying, false news was floated that he was a “high-value target” as narcotrafficker. Mendoza specialized in narc operations under PNP’s Drug Enforcement Group.
“But personal grudge was the true motive,” Rep. Romeo Acop told this column Wednesday. “He and Garma had frequent heated arguments, up to the afternoon he was killed.” Acop, himself a retired police general, had risen up the ranks from detective to comptroller.
Citing Mendoza and PCSO insiders, Acop said Barayuga had kept blocking Garma’s “licensing to friends of Small-Town Lottery and Peryahan ng Bayan.”
Many STLs are fronts for jueteng illegal numbers game. Peryahan was suspended then.
“Barayuga was a simple, upright man,” Acop said. “A lawyer, he repulsed shenanigans. He let his offspring use their only one family car. He commuted to and from work every day. That made casing him difficult for the assassins.”
Garma later assigned to Barayuga a PCSO pickup, Mendoza quoted Leonardo as tipping him off. The general was riding it the afternoon he was gunned down near PCSO’s Mandaluyong office.
Soon after, Mandaluyong police chief Col. Hector Grijaldo was removed, PNP announced at the time. Leonardo is a PNP Academy 1996 graduate. Garma, Grijaldo and Mendoza followed in 1997.
Barayuga was from Philippine Military Academy Class 1983. Same as retired general and PCSO chairman Anselmo Pinili, who placed him in the board.
In his affidavit Mendoza kept referring to the hit as a “project.” He said Leonardo made him believe it was an official operation.
Leonardo allegedly told him that Barayuga was into narco-trading. Mendoza wanted to do his own sleuthing and intelligence buildup, but was assured that Garma had approved everything.
Generals used Mendoza’s story to get themselves appointed PNP chief and other high positions. For six months he was kept at the Camp Crame White House, the PNP chief’s official residence.
Invented by a Filipino, Game of the Generals consists of contending board pieces, with police/military ranks eliminating each other. A higher rank, like general, can slay a lower one, like colonel; only a spy can kill a general, and only a private can kill a spy.
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Questioning the colonels, Rep. Joseph Paduano elicited info that PNPA classes 1996 and 1997 met with president-elect Duterte in Davao City in June 2016. Top agenda: “The Davao Template.”
Disappearances and killings had marked Duterte’s mayoralty. His favorite city police chief Ronald Dela Rosa had devised Operation Tokhang. Cops would “tuktok” or knock on drug suspects’ doors to “hangyo” or persuade them to surrender.
As president, Duterte made Dela Rosa his first PNP chief, 2016-2019. About 7,000 druggies were killed nationwide, supposedly for fighting back or “nanlaban.”
The International Criminal Court reportedly has compiled cases of crimes against humanity versus Duterte and Dela Rosa, now senator.
At quad comm Friday, Leonardo couldn’t remember any talk of “Davao Template.” Garma, a longtime Davao policewoman, recalled some discussions.
* * *
Quad consists of four House committees: dangerous drugs chaired by Rep. Ace Barbers, public order and safety under Rep. Dan Fernandez, human rights under Abante and public accounts under Paduano.
Their separate inquiries into extrajudicial killings, narcotrafficking, POGOs and money laundering yielded the same set of names and events. So they decided on joint hearings.
Testimonies connected Duterte’s Chinese economic adviser Michael Yang and Allan Lim to drugs. Same with Yang’s brothers Tony and Hongjiang. They laundered billions of pesos via POGOs in Metro Manila, Cavite, Pampanga, Tarlac, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro and Davao City.
In August police Col. Jovie Espenido confirmed to quad comm a quota and reward system to kill drug lords and pushers.
Claiming to shun summary executions, he said high officers were each given P100,000 to rub out 50 to 100 suspects a day. Plus P20,000 per drug lord.
Some rewards came from STL, he said.
Not only was he incriminated in arbitrary killings, but also listed as a drug protector, making him despondent.
Soon after assuming the presidency, Duterte denounced five “narco-generals.” With no details nor chance to explain, he publicized them: bemedaled Marcelo Garbo, Joel Pagdilao, Edgardo Tinio, Bernardo Diaz and Vic Loot.
* * *
Another PNPA grad, Davao Prison warden Sr. Supt. Gerardo Padilla, linked Garma to the August 2016 slaughter of three Chinese convicts. The three were drug lords, he told quad comm Sept. 4.
Garma supposedly told him it was Duterte’s order and best for his career. He let two Filipino inmates knife the Chinese to death.
Days later, Duterte called to congratulate him. While his subordinates and the two stooges listened in, Duterte purportedly said, “Job well done, pero grabe ang ginawang dinuguan.”
Garma dispelled Padilla’s revelation.
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