{"id":10294,"date":"2024-11-08T00:05:20","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T23:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=10294"},"modified":"2024-11-07T19:00:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T18:00:20","slug":"police-reward-system-for-drug-related-killings-exposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/police-reward-system-for-drug-related-killings-exposed\/","title":{"rendered":"Police reward system for drug-related killings exposed"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of the ongoing hearings of the so-called “Quad-Committee” of the Philippine House of Representatives to investigate human rights violations in the context of the so-called \u201cwar on drugs\u201d under former President Duterte’s administration, former police chief Royina Garma gave<\/a> a sworn statement on October 23, 2024. Garma confirmed<\/a> the existence of a reward system that offered police officers financial incentives for killing suspected drug criminals.<\/p>\n

On Duterte’s instructions, Garma recommended<\/a> Col. Edilberto Leonardo in 2016 to lead and coordinate the national anti-drug operations based on the so-called \u201cDavao model\u201d (referring to the summary executions of the Davao Death Squad (DDS)). For his part, Leonardo, currently a commissioner of the National Police Commission, confirmed<\/a> the existence of the reward system in his testimony before the Quad-Committee. According to Garma’s testimony, Duterte’s office offered<\/a> police officers up to 17,000 US dollars as a reward for killing a suspect. Senator Ronald dela Rosa, former police chief under Duterte, rejected<\/a> the testimony of Garma and Leonardo as false. Former senator Leila de Lima also testified<\/a> that her imprisonment under the former Duterte administration was due to a deliberate campaign of discredit.<\/p>\n

Garma, former director general of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), is also suspected<\/a> of ordering the murder of Wesley Barayuga, PCSO board secretary, to allegedly prevent possible corruption charges against her. Lieutenant Colonel Santie Mendoza told<\/a> the Quad-Committee that Leonardo had instructed him in 2019 to plan Barayuga’s murder. After the crime in July 2020, Barayuga’s name was<\/a> placed on a drug watch list by Mendoza to portray the murder as a drug-related homicide. Both Garma and Leonardo denied<\/a> all allegations. Member of the House of Representatives, Robert Ace Barbers, urged<\/a> the Philippine Department of Justice (DOJ) to immediately file complaints against the alleged masterminds of Barayuga’s murder without waiting for the final report of the Quad-Committee.<\/p>\n

The Philippine Commission on Human Rights (CHR) announced<\/a> on October 17, 2024, that it would support the Quad-Committee and submitted the findings of its 2022 report on human rights violations in the \u201cwar on drugs\u201d to the committee. In a statement on October 3 the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) called<\/a> on the Philippine government to initiate full prosecutions against those named in the Quad-Committee hearings as responsible for the “war on drugs.” On October 15, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. expressed<\/a> his support for the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) intention to reinvestigate killings in the context of the former Duterte administration’s anti-drug campaign.<\/p>\n

Rodrigo Duterte is expected<\/a> to attend the Quad-Committee hearings in November 2024 after his lawyer announced on October 22 that Duterte had so far stayed away for health reasons. If he cancels again, the committee is considering<\/a> a subpoena to compel his attendance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo \u00a9 Raffy Lerma<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As part of the ongoing hearings of the so-called “Quad-Committee” of the Philippine House of Representatives to investigate human rights violations in the context of the so-called \u201cwar on drugs\u201d under former President Duterte’s administration, former police chief Royina Garma gave a sworn statement on October 23, 2024. Garma confirmed the existence of a reward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[64,73,58,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-war-on-drugs-en","category-aktuelles-en","category-human-rights-news","category-internal-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10294"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10359,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10294\/revisions\/10359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}