MANILA, Philippines – The United States canceled the visa of retired police colonel Royina Garma, who served under former president Rodrigo Duterte and is accused by a self-confessed hitman as an implementer of the alleged Davao Death Squad (DDS).
Garma said that she wasn’t able to board her connecting flight in Japan to the US because her visa, supposed to expire in 2028, had been declared “invalid and canceled,” she was told. Garma rose the ranks in the police force in Davao when Duterte was mayor.
“I approached the counter of Japan Airlines, when I approached them I was told, ‘We cannot get you a ticket because your US visa is invalid already, it’s canceled.’ I was told there is no explanation,” said Garma in a mix of English and Filipino.
Rappler has asked the US embassy in Manila for confirmation, but a spokesperson said they cannot comment on individual visa cases.
The United States has the Magnitsky Act which bars travel to the country for people it has deemed to be involved in serious human rights violations. It is an American sanction meant to be a deterrent to grave human rights violations in the world.
“There is sufficient basis to believe that it is related. Sa mga kasong sinampa sa ICC (International Criminal Court) nung mga pamilya ng drug war victims, kasama si Royina Garma sa mga pinangalanang sangkot,” Kabataan Partylist Representative Raoul Manuel told Rappler, citing the Magnitsky Act.
(In the communications filed by the victims of drug war families to the ICC, they named Royina Garma.)
Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa’s US visa was also canceled in 2020, which was also believed to have been connected to accusations of human rights violations as architect of Duterte’s drug war.
Self-confessed DDS hitman Arturo Lascañas said in his affidavit that Garma was among those who executed orders of then mayor Duterte for the DDS. Lascañas has been granted limited immunity by the ICC, where investigation of the drug war killings and the DDS and Duterte are ongoing.
Garma was also chief of police of Cebu City during Duterte’s presidency. Cebu City was also a hotspot for drug war killings, which human rights lawyer Kristina Conti pointed out also happened during Garma’s leadership there. Conti cited the example of Rabby Lopez who was killed in 2018 in a police anti-drug operation in Cebu.
“At the wake, Royina Garma chief of police of Cebu City and her police officers came to their place, she was enraged and she strutted around and she was angry at them for holding a wake for the death of her son, and she was telling them, ‘why is there only one dead, there are many of them here,’” said Conti, citing the sworn statement of Rabby’s mother Raquel.
Garma was supposed to fly to the United States via a Japan layover on August 28, which was after the House Quad Committee mentioned her in its continuing investigation of extrajudicial killings during Duterte’s term.
Did she try to evade the House panel invite?
“Malalaman natin sa DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) at DOJ (Department of Justice). We will wait sa report,” said Santa Rosa, Laguna Lone District Representative Dan Fernandez. (We will know from the DFA and DOJ. We will wait for their report.)
ICC investigation
Garma was not among an initial list of police officials who were requested by the ICC for an interview. On the list, apart from Dela Rosa, was retired police colonel and current National Police Commissioner (Napolcom) commissioner Edilberto Leonardo who also attended the hearing on Thursday.
Like Garma, Lascañas also accused Leonardo of implementing orders in the DDS.
But between the two, Garma was interrogated more intensely, which ended up in her being cited in contempt and ordered detained at the House of Representatives. A crying Garma pleaded to the panel, citing her daughter who she said required urgent care, but the House committee stood by its order.
Garma and Leonardo are the highest ranking police officers supposedly close to Duterte that the committee had managed to compel to attend their hearings. Thursday’s interpellation meant to establish the close relationship to the former president, but both denied any special connection. Garma and Leonardo are also being implicated as allegedly having a hand in the killings of Chinese drug lords inside the Davao Penal Colony in 2016, an “operation” that Duterte supposedly commended.
Lawmakers pointed out that both got plum posts after retiring from the police force — Garma as general manager of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), and Leonardo as an environment undersecretary before his Napolcom post.
It’s been rumored for months that the ICC might be gearing up to issue arrest warrants soon, but there has been no confirmation of that although the investigation is at the stage where the prosecutor can request for arrest warrants, if he hasn’t already done so. The ICC chamber, the court proper, has to approve.
Human rights lawyer Joel Butuyan, who assisted some of the victims of police killings, asked the House on Thursday for transcripts of the quad committee hearings. “It is key to the ongoing ICC investigation, I have no doubt that if the evidence being unearthed in this investigation reaches the ICC, it will hasten the issuance of the arrest warrants,” said Butuyan.
Committee chairperson Ace Barbers refused to officially provide the transcripts, going by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s official policy to stay out as a member of the ICC, but the lawmaker said: “This public hearing has been openly accessed by the public, you can access through different platforms available.”
ICC takes cognizance of open-source information, and has cited them in different reports issued so far in the Philippine investigation. – With reports from Bea Cupin, Dwight de Leon, and Jairo Bolledo/Rappler.com
