Retired police colonel and former Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) general manager Royina M. Garma, now in Malaysia meeting with representatives of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has agreed to testify on the alleged extrajudicial killings during the administration of former President Rodrigo R. Duterte.
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla confirmed that Garma’s ICC testimony was the reason she left the Philippines for Malaysia last Sunday, just a day after arriving from the United States.
“I think she agreed to be a witness, according to Sen. Sonny Trillanes (former senator Antonio Trillanes IV),” Remulla told reporters during a press briefing.
“So, as we speak, she’s with them right now, with the ICC people in Malaysia,” he added.
Remulla emphasized that meeting with the ICC abroad was the safest option for Garma, citing potential threats to her life in the Philippines.
“Let’s face it. Uniformed personnel ang kalaban n’ya,” he said.
Before her departure, Garma met with outgoing National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Jaime “Jimmy” B. Santiago.
“I just asked Director Jimmy Santiago to make sure that she was doing the right thing, that she will be doing what she said she would do—which is to testify and to meet with the ICC first,” Remulla said.
He stressed the importance of Garma’s testimony against Duterte, also former Davao City mayor, who is currently detained in The Hague in the Netherlands. He faces crimes against humanity before the ICC for the extrajudicial killings during his drug war.
“I think Garma is the highest-ranking police officer that can be asked to give a narrative about the drug war, the reward system, and the other parts of her testimony which she has already given,” he said.
He admitted that the negotiations to have Garma turn as prosecution witness before the ICC was done through Trillanes.
“Mr. Trillanes kasi is a go between the DOJ and the ICC because we have not yet defined our intention to rejoin the ICC and we just have a working relationship that is not even just at arms-length but a cautious working relationship,” he explained.
He also said that Garma was forced to return to the Philippines last Saturday, Sept. 6, after her application for asylum in the United States was denied.
Garma fled in November last year to the US after appearing before the legislative hearings on the drug war where she admitted the existence of a reward system to policemen who killed drug suspects.
She is facing a complaint before the DOJ for murder and frustrated murder in connection with the 2020 killing of PCSO board secretary and retired police general Wesley Barayuga and for the injuries sustained by the victim’s driver Jun Gunao.
“We will still run after it and we will see how this will play out because the testimony in the ICC is very important, I think. Not only that, the Wesley Barayuga case is equally important. It cannot go unserved,” assured Remulla. (Jeffrey Damicog)
