Barayuga slay: Duterte's men played dangerous Game of the Generals

Atleast three police colonels conspired in murdering a general in 2020, using then-president Rodrigo Duterte's drug war as cover.

- JARIUS BONDOC

Odd coincidences tied a fourth colonel to the heinous crime. Other generals covered it up.

The House quad comm ferreted this out Friday while hearing the 36,000 narco-killings during Duterte's 2016-2022 tenure.

In tears, PNP Lt. Col. Santie Mendoza confessed to hiring hitmen against PCSO board secretary Wesley Barayuga, a retired PNP general, on July 30, 2020.

Seated beside Mendoza, hit squad leader Nelson Mariano confirm the kill.

Mendoza implicated Col. Edilberto Leonardo, Duterte's appointee to the National Police Commission. He alleged that Col. Royina Garma, then PCSO general manager, arranged the assassination, including the P300,000 prize.

Garma and Leonardo, present at the hearing, denied the capital offense.

Garma was Duterte's mistress, Rep. Bienvenido Abante said in the televised hearing. He read into the records a column by Duterte's friend Ramon Tulfo saying so. Newspaperman Tulfo has covered the police for 50 years.

Garma disavowed being Duterte's moll.

After Barayuga's slaying, false news was floated that he was a "high-value target" as narcotrafficker. Mendoza specialized in narc operations under PNP's Drug Enforcement Group.

"But personal grudge was the true motive," Rep. Romeo Acop told this column Wednesday. "He and Garma had frequent heated arguments, up to the afternoon he was killed." Acop, himself a retired police general, had risen up the ranks from detective to comptroller.

Citing Mendoza and PCSO insiders, Acop said Barayuga had kept blocking Garma's "licensing to friends of SmallTown Lottery and Peryahan ng Bayan." Many STLs are fronts for jueteng illegal numbers game. Peryahan was suspended then.