Linked to murder and money laundering, Garma seeking US political asylum

Ex-PNP Col. Royina Garma is linked to the 2020 assassination of a general. She was influential in Rodrigo Duterte's admin then.

- JARIUS BONDOC

She allegedly laundered unexplained wealth to America.

She bared illicit quotas and rewards to slay mere suspects under Duterte's drug war. She's a star witness to pin the former president to 36,000 extrajudicial killings in 2016-2022.

Yet Garma is now in the US seeking political asylum.

"What's she up to?" Rep. Romeo Acop pondered as vice chairman of the House quad comm.

On Aug. 28, Garma already tried to flee. That's after she was named in quad comm hearings as the Cebu City police chief when 198 were killed. Purchasing a plane ticket in Japan, she was rejected when US authorities informed the airline that her visa had been cancelled.

Garma returned to Manila to cooperate with the quad comm. In two explosive affidavits, she divulged that:

(1) In June 2016 president-elect Duterte asked her as Davao City police station head to nationalize their local drug war. Declining, she endorsed Col. Edilberto Leonardo, whom Duterte elevated.

(2) Duterte had set quotas and rewards to kill porch-climbers and pickpockets as far back as 2012-2015 when he was mayor. Through police-bodyguards, he twice gave Garma P20,000 for slaying thieves in her jurisdiction.

(3) The president listed drug suspects for liquidation, with rewards ranging from P20,000 to P100,000 to P1 million based on underworld rank.

(4) Cebu City Capt. Kenneth Albotra had bragged to her having assassinated Tanauan, Batangas mayor Antonio Halili.