BY ADE S. FAJARDO
WHY IS a lottery office a coveted government appointment?
Shouldn’t the office overseeing legal games of chance to raise funds for the sick and the needy be headed by philanthropists or civic-minded persons?
Shortly after Rodrigo Duterte was proclaimed president in mid-2016 he said he wanted “killers” to head the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. The ostensive reason was that someone brave had to run after the grafters in PCSO.
In September 2016 he appointed former police director Jose Jorge Corpus as PCSO chairman, together with retired Marine General Alexander Balutan as PCSO General Manager.
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In March 2019 Duterte fired Balutan over allegations of corruption. Did he appoint a “killer” to replace him?
In June 2019 Duterte appointed Cebu City police director Royina Garma to replace Balutan as PCSO GM. Garma accepted the appointment and opted for optional retirement to be freed of her functions as a policewoman.
By this time Garma had been included by lawyer Jude Sabio as a respondent for “crimes against humanity” in a communication filed with the International Criminal Court.
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Sabio complained of a “continuing mass murder” in the Philippine war on drugs.
Supt. Royina Garma was impleaded in the complaint because of her alleged violations in the implementation of Oplan Tokhang, and for the killings in her area of responsibility as head of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Region 7.
Former Cebu City Mayor Tom Osmeña expressed alarm over the killings in Cebu City in 2018. “This is the worst I’ve ever seen…It’s out of control,” he told the media. He said the number of killings spiked when Duterte assigned two “favored cops” in Cebu, i.e., Garma and Debold Sinas, the former regional police commander of Central Visayas.
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The “Quadcomm” is now a by-word, thanks to the four committees assembled by Congress to investigate how gambling and POGO money may have financed the Duterte war on drugs, among others.
Last week two convicts serving time in prison testified before the Quadcomm that when Duterte assumed power in July 2016 they were tapped to eliminate Chinese personalities Cho-kin Tong, Jackson Lee, and Peter Wang, who were then fellow prisoners at the Davao penal colony.
Leopoldo Tan Jr. said his high-school classmate SPO4 Arthur Narsolis of the CIDG paid him a visit and said that the targets were drug lords. Their elimination greenlighted by no less than the newly minted President. He was instructed look for a companion to implement the killing, in exchange for liberty and P1 million per successful kill.
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Notably, Tan identified Lt. Col. Royina Garma, then assigned at CIDG Region 11, as the companion of SPO4 Narsolis when they came to visit one Major Portaleza, another convict serving time at the Davao penal farm.
Portaleza was purportedly Garma’s classmate at the police academy. It was Portaleza who told Tan that they should not fail in their mission.
Tan also said that he aware of the romantic relationship between Narsolis and Garma.
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Will the Quadcomm be able to establish a connection between jueteng money and the drug war? Was the PCSO post a reward, or another means to an end?/PN
