Former Cebu mayor Tommy Osmeña said he tipped off then-president Rodrigo Duterte, claiming that Royina Garma was deeply involved with gambling syndicates, pocketing a cool P1 million a week as the head of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Cebu.
That wasn’t just loose change. That was a buy-yourself-an-island kind of money. And Duterte’s reaction? Nada. His caregiver at the time, now-Senator Bong Go? No reaction either.
Instead of cracking down, Duterte promoted Garma, making her Cebu’s chief of police. After that, the colonel became the general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). She fell upward.
It makes us wonder: What’s with Garma and betting money?
Her promotion came from the same president who, back in 2016, warned government officials: “I shouldn’t hear anything about corruption, [not] even a whiff or whisper. I will fire you or place you somewhere.”
Now, a few years later, Garma dropped a bombshell that lit up the sky. In front of congressmen, she spilled the beans, exposing Duterte as the puppet master behind the extrajudicial killings, and swearing that the “Davao model” was the template for what became a nationwide reign of terror.
According to her, gunmen were paid anywhere from P20,000 to P1 million per hit. So that probably explains why police reports labeled those shot dead as “high-value” drug personalities — they meant it literally during Duterte’s administration.
Garma’s affidavit corroborated what self-confessed former Duterte hitman Arturo Lascañas already said under oath: the Duterte drug war wasn’t disorganized; those who carried it out worked under a well-oiled murder machine.
The testimony could sink Duterte, but let’s not pop the popcorn just yet. Garma might switch it up. Tomorrow, she could hop on YouTube, sobbing, “Oh, those tears from my Duterte exposé? I was under duress!”
While crying, she told congressmen she was scared. But she left out the “who” in her fear fest. Everyone immediately concluded it was the crime syndicate from Davao — and why wouldn’t they? But how convenient it would be if she later tweaked her story to point fingers at the Marcos-Romualdez crew instead.
Osmeña already warned: You can’t trust Garma’s tears. It could be the classic play — when in doubt, cry. If that doesn’t work, claim it was a hostage situation and then shift the blame.
Even without Garma’s affidavit, it isn’t hard to see that the former president had a mental health issue. He was obsessed with bloodshed and boasted about it for all the world to hear. He loves violence the way kids love chocolates and candies.
And based on years of observation and sworn testimonies, it has become clearer that the Duterte administration was a crime syndicate disguised as government. The Duterte drug war was a sham, orchestrated to eliminate the competition, strong-arm smaller politicians into submission, silence critics, settle old scores, and punish anyone who dared resist.
The previous administration made it seem like it took on the monumental task of dismantling the drug trade’s infrastructure. Yet, it did not target the major sources of illegal drugs, nor did it stop the flow. Many of those killed were either innocent or small-time players.
Stopping corruption?
And why didn’t Duterte call out China, which his administration identified as a major source of illegal drugs? Wasn’t the P6.4-billion shabu shipment in 2017 from China?
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) was a major drug trafficking apparatus during Duterte’s presidency. Like the Philippine National Police (PNP), Duterte described the bureau as “corrupt to the core.” He criticized nearly everyone in the bureau — except for Nicanor Faeldon.
Remember Faeldon, Duterte’s golden boy at Customs? He had one job — stop corruption at the BOC. One job. But what happened? Shabu worth P6.4 billion waltzed through the BOC like it was heading for a beach vacation. And what did Duterte do? Fire him? Nope! He gave Faeldon a pat on the back and a promotion. Just like Garma.
If only Duterte had shown the same zeal in fighting corruption as he did in his so-called war on drugs — which, more often than not, targeted small-time offenders or poor souls in slippers, accused of being criminals — we’d probably have a far more just and functioning criminal justice system.
But he didn’t fix the system. Instead, he threw wrenches into it like a madman in a machine shop. It was as if he wanted the corruption to continue, sugar-coating it with a fake drug war to distract the public.
That was his whole thing. He fed on that drama like a telenovela junkie. And it was not just for show — no, it was a survival tactic of an administration with a record full of lies, corruption, and a body count higher than a Quentin Tarantino film. That administration just had to distract people, and make them look anywhere but at Duterte.
The Duterte administration was steeped in hypocrisy. He was in charge for six long years. He was the head of government. And every time Rodrigo Duterte complained about corruption during his lousy presidency, every time he bashed it, and every time he decried narco politics, he was actually yelling at himself in the mirror.
Horrific masquerade
As early as 2016, one could smell the stink of something rancid coming from his administration. It wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill corrupt regime; it was a masterclass in disgrace, a circus where the ringmaster was a catcalling, self-absorbed misogynist, proud of his vulgarity. He blended narcissism and warmongering like a cocktail nobody asked for, but everyone was forced to choke down.
Here was a creature so bloated with arrogance, injustice, and vindictiveness. He didn’t just abuse power — he caressed it, squeezed it, and then pounded it into submission, arrogantly showing the world that his breathtaking disregard for accountability was just another way of saying that it was someone else’s problem and not his.
Lying came as naturally as breathing. They could twist the truth into a pretzel without breaking a sweat. And the public? They were the unsuspecting audience to a sleight-of-hand con artist, selling cruelty as policy. His was not leadership; it was the desperate flailing of a bully, drunk on megalomania and utterly devoid of honor.
What unfolded was six years of a horrific masquerade, where a stubborn, power-drunk tyrant butchered the meaning of patriotism to justify repression. His “patriotism” was actually tyranny in a karaoke bar crooning a tone-deaf rendition of the Frank Sinatra classic “My Way” into the microphone. Pastilan. – Rappler.com
