“Mere denial cannot prevail over positive testimony and documentary evidence.”
In the September 27th and seventh QuadComm joint committee hearing, former Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office chair Royina Garma was a picture of defiance when confronted by two new witnesses, PLtCol. Santie Mendoza and Nelson Mariano, who implicated the former PCSO Chair and NAPOLCOM Commissioner Edilberto Leonardo in the assassination of PCSO board secretary and Police General Wesley Barayuga in 2020.
During the hearing, Garma adamantly denied Mendoza’s assertion that she issued a service vehicle to the late Barayuga to make it easier for the gunman to identify and track him down. Garma insisted that she and the slain Barayuga had a good working relationship despite insinuations that she and the victim had a falling out when the later threatened to expose corruption inside the PCSO. According to Mendoza, it was Garma with the help of Lt. Leonardo who hatched the assassination plot. As per Mendoza’s testimony, Leonardo told him that Garma herself provided P300,000 as “payment for the job”.
The impression Garma gave to the public in the earlier hearing was one of a cold-blooded killer – a consummate manipulator, a master criminal – who would stop at nothing to prove her innocence and distance herself from the criminal activities she is being accused of.
But the pangs of conscience and the feelings of remorse may have proved more powerful than her impulse to insist on her innocence when in the following hearing, Garma decided to spill the beans on her former boss, former President Rodrigo Duterte, and other high-ranking officials of the Duterte administration like Senator Bong Go, Napolcom Commissioner Leonardo, and PMS Usec Moking who had a hand in the murderous anti-drug campaign of the Duterte administration.
In her affidavit, Garma stated that upon a request for help from Duterte, she recommended Leonardo to be the implementer of this drug war. She accused Duterte of spearheading a nationwide, cash reward-driven system during his administration’s war on drugs, similar to what allegedly took place in Davao City. According to theQuadComm, this reward system is well documented.
We recall that as early as 2009, sworn affidavits of four witnesses detailed the structure of the alleged death squad, explained the execution of death contracts, and provided insights into the practice of burying victims in the Laud quarry. Then this was followed by the confessions of Matobato and Lascañas on the DDS vigilante killings by then-Mayor Duterte in Davao. Duterte is now being haunted by his blood-soaked past.
In the ongoing hearings, the QuadComm also unearthed evidence against Senators Bato (Ronald dela Rosa) and (Bong) Go’s involvement in the EJKs and the existence of the reward system that was public knowledge during the previous administration, particularly in the Philippine National Police (PNP). Of course, all these revelations were public knowledge during the previous administration, only that everybody knew what would have happened if one protested or opposed its policy.
Many human rights groups, the legal opposition, etc. who dared question Duterte themselves ended up either dead, imprisoned, or persecuted. One prominent victim was Leila De Lima who suffered political persecution. She was imprisoned for seven years despite her innocence, only because she stepped on the toes of a vindictive president.
Of course, the officials implicated are denying to high heavers their involvement. But these plain denials cannot stand up against testimonial and documentary evidence. It is settled that mere denial cannot prevail over positive testimony and documentary evidence. The defense of denial by those implicated including Bato and Go is treated as self-serving negative evidence which cannot be accorded greater evidentiary weight than the declaration of credible witnesses who testify on affirmative matters.
Garma’s affidavit has the hallmarks of veracity and truthfulness vis-à-vis the plain denials by Bato, Go, and others. She was part of the inner circle, a trusted operative of the former president who during the campaign continuously bragged that he would not stop until the last drug personality was killed. Garma was an insider who followed Duterte’s bidding.
What is so striking about the drug war as a phenomenon was the deafening silence of the institutions and public officials who were supposed to defend the victims. Through fear and intimidation or force of suasion, Duterte succeeded in coopting the whole nation into agreeing with him that exterminating drug personalities, be they engaged in the drug trade or mere suspects, was justifiable and morally correct.
Because of the drug war, countless innocent victims have been killed. It has spawned a culture of impunity among law enforcers, by killing, killing, and killing, instead of according suspects due process and giving them a day in court to prove their innocence. The culture of impunity during the time of Duterte was such that one QuadComm resource person, Lt.Col. Jovie Espinido, accused the PNP as the “biggest crime group.”
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