IS THE mighty Quad Com out to get the Dutertes?
First to drop a bombshell was Jimmy Guban, a former intelligence officer at the Bureau of Customs, who identified Michael Yang, Polong Duterte, and Mans Carpio, as facilitators of illegal drugs right at the country’s principal gateway.
Next was Jimmy Fortaleza, a convicted cop, who admitted having been approached by his batchmates at the Philippine National Police Academy prior to the murder of three Chinese nationals inside the Davao Penal Colony.
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Dapecol jail warden Supt. Gerardo Padilla was constrained to admit that the operation was executed with the imprimatur of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte.
He made the admission after two Filipino prisoners confessed that they were paid for the gruesome task of killing the three foreigners in their common cell.
Padilla also corroborated Fortaleza’s statement that he had coordinated with Duterte’s favored cop Royina Garma prior to the killings.
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A document from the International Criminal Court released last July identified Edilberto Leonardo as among those with “concrete involvement” in Duterte’s war on drugs.
Very few people recognized the name then. The police colonel appears to be a quiet worker who managed to stay away from the limelight while the entire world stood witness to the thousands of executions carried out in the entirety of the Duterte administration.
What did the ICC know that we did not know before?
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Royina Garma finally cracked last Friday. She revealed what the ICC had apparently known all along.
She testified before the Quad Com that she met with Duterte in his house in Doña Luisa, Davao City in May 2016, where she was told to look for an operative who is a member of the Iglesia Ni Cristo. Duterte said that “he needed someone capable of implementing the war on drugs on a national scale, replicating the Davao model.”
Garma recommended Leonardo. He was her upperclassman at the PNPA and she knew him to be a member of the INC.
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Garma also disclosed the names of people who assisted Leonardo in expanding the Davao drug war model.
Leonardo tapped his trusted people at the CIDG regional office in Davao City. Field agents would transmit to them information on deaths and arrests of individuals listed in Duterte’s narco-list.
They were assisted by one Peter Parungo, said to be a former detainee at the CIDG.
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Garma said it was Leonardo who ranked the level of difficulty in the killings, and allocated the rewards that the killers deserved. Not that different from bounty killings.
These cash gifts were allegedly coursed through Parungo’s bank accounts with several banks. Parungo will likely be summoned by the Quad Com and possibly coaxed to sign a waiver of the protective provisions of the Bank Secrecy Act.
The cash deposits and the trail that they lead to will quite possibly confirm Garma’s testimony.
Will Leonardo be able to withstand the pressure? Or will he also wilt and deliver the fatal blow to the Davao group?/PN
