The people behind Wesley Barayuga’s murder said he was a target who was hard to kill.
Although he was a retired police brigadier and a Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office board secretary, Barayuga did not use a car for work. He traveled using public transportation to and from PCSO, making it hard for his killers to plot his assassination. They only got the good general when the PCSO issued him a vehicle.
The car’s specifications, color, and plate number were provided to the assailants to plan the perfect time to kill Barayuga.
Barayuga was heading home on July 30, 2020, onboard his PCSO-issued car, driven by his aide Salvador Gunao, when he was killed along Calbayog street, Barangay Highway Hills, in Mandaluyong City. A motorcycle-riding assailant rained fire on the vehicle. The PCSO official sustained four gunshot wounds in his head and body, while his aide was shot in the stomach.
The retired cop died on the spot, while his driver fortunately survived.
The suspect used a blue motorcycle with no plate number, and wore a red helmet, face mask, black sweatshirt, and maroon pants. He had a companion who rode a leaf-green metallic motorcycle which also bore no plate. After killing the general, the assailant fled towards DM Guevarra street in the same barangay, and was never arrested nor detained for the killing.
People assumed the killers would be arrested in a snap, given Barayuga’s background as a former cop and a member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Matikas Class of 1983. This is far from reality, however, as Barayuga’s killing remains unsolved until new testimonies came into light.
‘Garma, Leonardo ordered me to kill Barayuga’
The cops closest to former president Rodrigo Duterte are under fire. Not only because they are close to the chief executive who waged a drug war that killed at least 30,000 people, but because of their own alleged involvement in a pile of crimes.
Former Davao Region Criminal Investigation and Detection Group chief and current National Police Commission commissioner Edilberto Leonardo is under probe for his alleged involvement in the killing of three Chinese drug lords in Davao in 2016. Former Cebu City police chief Royina Garma, a cop known for her close ties with Duterte, also faces a string of allegations, including alleged involvement in the Chinese drug lords’ killing and questions over her appointment as PCSO general manager in 2019.
The common denominator between Garma and Leonardo, aside from both being alleged members of the Davao Death Squad that took kill orders from Duterte, is that they both allegedly had a hand in Barayuga’s killing.
Anti-drug cop Police Lieutenant Colonel Santie Mendoza dropped a bombshell during a hearing of the House of Representatives’ quad committee on September 27.
According to Mendoza’s affidavit seen by Rappler, he received a call from Leonardo one day in October 2019 about an operation against a high-value target allegedly involved in drug activities. Leonardo asked Mendoza to help in the operation, but the anti-drug cop said he had qualms since he still needed to review the project before accepting it.
Months later, in February 2020, Mendoza said Leonardo reached out again and identified Barayuga as the target. The anti-drug cop said he told Leonardo that the intelligence needed verification since the target was a high-ranking government official. However, Mendoza said he was told by Leonardo that it needed no verification since the order came from Garma, who was then the PCSO general manager.
“Despite my qualms to accept the order because the target was a government official, I was forced to agree and follow because the order came from a high-ranking official and my upperclassman, Police Colonel Leonardo, and the order came from a member of the Cabinet, Ma’am Royina Garma,” Mendoza said in Filipino.
After accepting the assignment, Mendoza said he talked to former cop Nelson Mariano since he knew him for having a “network” that deals with the kind of operation he was given. Mariano is also Mendoza’s former informant about drug personalities. The COVID-19 restrictions derailed the assassination plot, Mendoza said, but Leonardo reached out to him again in June 2020 to resurrect the orders.
Mariano looked for the hitman and found alias “Loloy.” On the day of Barayuga’s killing, Mendoza said Leonardo told him that they could execute the operation since Barayuga was at the PCSO office. Leonardo also sent a photo of Barayuga to Mendoza, which originally came Garma, according to the affidavit.
Police Staff Sergeant Jeremy Causapin, a cop who was detailed to Garma when she was with the PCSO, was also implicated in the crime. Causapin or “Toks” was mentioned by Mendoza in his affidavit as a middleman in the case who provided more information about the target, and as the one who gave the P300,000 reward from Garma to Mariano. Mendoza said he received a P40,000 share in the reward money.
Both Garma and Leonardo denied Mendoza’s allegations. Mariano, meanwhile, also submitted an affidavit to the quad committee that reinforced Mendoza’s allegations.
Cold case
Three months after he was killed, Barayuga’s mistahs from the PMA batch 1983 offered a P1-million reward for those who could provide information about the suspects behind their classmate’s murder. The former PMAers pooled in funds together to raise the amount.
Barayuga’s case was high-profile not only because he was a government official, but also because he belongs to a powerful PMA batch that produced military chiefs, including former military-chief-turned-Cabinet-member Eduardo Año. So why was Barayuga’s murder became a cold case?
Police Colonel Hector Grijaldo, Garma’s classmate from the PNP Academy Batch 1997, was the chief of Mandaluyong police at the time of Barayuga’s killing. Grijaldo said during the quad committee hearing on September 27 that there was a probe into the killing and, in fact, a special task group was created to conduct a deeper investigation.
The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) took jurisdiction of the case after a series of case conference, Grijaldo said. The murder, he added, became a cold case because no complaint was filed within the period of six months. Grijaldo said the motives the police had established was that the crime was either work-related or due to personal grudge.
In a copy of a CIDG report obtained by Rappler, the PNP unit said Barayuga’s murder “may have originated from his former assignments, notable of which are as Chief of Police in Iloilo City, PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency), and other sensitive and controversial posts.” The report added that Barayuga may have also been killed because his “hardline stance against Peryahan ng Bayan operation sans permits may have triggered ulterior motives from among his peers in PCSO.”
But the most striking part of the report was the recommendation of the CIDG to conduct a probe into Barayuga’s alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade during his time as Iloilo City police chief.
During the hearing, Surigao del Sur 2nd District Representative Johnny Pimentel said Barayuga was killed in the middle of a probe into alleged corruption inside the PCSO. He added that, prior to the ambush, Barayuga had said he was ready to testify in the probe.
A source close to Barayuga told Rappler that, based on their knowledge, there was a conflict inside the PCSO. The source said Barayuga was given an order, but the retired police general refused to follow the command. The source did not specify what type of order was given to Barayuga and who gave it.
But Garma denied that she and Barayuga had conflicts when they were working together at the PCSO. Garma, however, did not escape the lawmakers’ questions about her actions after Barayuga’s killing. She was questioned why she did not hold her own probe after the PCSO board secretary was murdered, and yet she launched an inquiry when cop Chuck Barandog, who was close to her, was ambushed.
“In the case of Colonel Barandog, nobody from the PNP made a statement that they would investigate. But to the board secretary Barayuga, I heard the police, they said they would initiate [an] investigation. So I presume they did their jobs,” Garma explained.
Multi-layered problem
The revelations on Barayuga’s killing did not only put in the spotlight the problem of a slow justice system, but also showed how the Duterte government utilized power for its own benefit.
For his mistahs, Barayuga was a decent general and a man of integrity, according to source close to him.
“He had no bad records. He came from the Navy, then in PNP. He commuted to work. If he’s involved in drugs, he should have been a rich man and he was no longer working at the PCSO,” the source, who wished anonymity, told Rappler.
Yet, Mendoza revealed that the good general was killed in the guise of an anti-drug operation based on Garma and Leonardo’s orders. Barayuga’s name also appeared in the government’s drug list only after his death. The current PNP leadership did not only relaunch a probe into Barayuga’s death, they also ordered a review of the rules for inclusion in the PNP’s anti-drug list.
The National Bureau of Investigation also announced that it had reopened the case for further investigation.
If the allegations against Garma and Leonardo will be proven true, it will show anew that the drug war was used for personal gains and vendettas.
Earlier, former Iloilo City mayor Jed Mabilog went on self-exile in the United States after he was tagged in illegal drug trade during the administration of Duterte. He revealed that he sought asylum because he refused to falsely tag former senators Mar Roxas and Franklin Drilon in illegal drugs. Roxas ran against Duterte in 2016, while Drilon was an opposition lawmaker under the Duterte presidency.
Another example would be former senator Leila de Lima, who was jailed for a close to seven years for three drug cases filed under Duterte. De Lima was already cleared in all of her cases, as of 2024, and has been enjoying liberty since 2023.
In a statement, the Barayuga family thanked the House mega-panel and their witnesses in uncovering the truth behind their patriarch’s killing: “This gives us comfort even while we know that we are still far from receiving justice. Sa huling apat na taon inupuan ang kaso at pinaasa ang aming pamilya na may ginagawa sila tungkol dito (In the last four years, they stalled the investigation and brought our hopes up that they were doing something about the case.”
“At this point, it is difficult to trust and put our hopes up. However, we believe that this is God’s way of serving justice and clearing Wesley A. Barayuga’s name whose case was alleged to be drug-related in a desperate attempt to cover up their tracks,” they added.
The PNP has recently relieved four cops tagged in Barayuga’s killing, including Mendoza, Grijaldo, and Causapin. – Rappler.com
*Some quotes were translated into English for brevity.
