She introduced herself to the House’s Quad Committee as Royina Marzan Garma. It was her maiden name. She was a native of Cagayan Province but had made Davao City her home upon marriage to the policeman Roland Vilela. They were classmates in the Philippine National Police Academy.
She related that her marriage to Vilela had been annulled. Pressed why, she admitted that the marriage went through rough times. Vilela was accused in Davao City of raping a minor. It was a big scandal in the city. Royina pleaded to then mayor Rodrigo Duterte not to transfer her husband.
Who can beseech the powerful intercession of Mayor Duterte? That was what the Quadcom had wanted to know. Was she very close to Duterte that she can be given what she begged for? Today, Vilela has never been charged with the crime and was even appointed in August 2019 as chief of the Iloilo Provincial Police Office – and this has to be said — when Duterte was president. He stayed for only a year and was then appointed as police attaché to the United States.
Garma claimed her relationship with Duterte was professional. She did not attribute to professionalism however what followed her early retirement from the service as full colonel on June 24, 2019. She still had 10 more years of service. But a mere two days later, President Duterte appointed her to a national position of trust and discretion – general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
She narrated that she had submitted her application to the president through his special assistant Bong Go. “No police officer in Davao city does not know Bong Go,” she said. With Go’s intercession, she said she could go in and out of Malacañang to see Duterte as she pleased.
The Quadcom was investigating extrajudicial killings during the Duterte regime. Was it a coincidence that Garma’s U.S. visa was declared invalid by the U.S. government? Was it an application of the Global Magnitsky Act of 2016 that bans human rights offenders from entering the U.S.?
Garma was a frequent traveller to the U.S. House representatives had secured her travel records from the Bureau of Immigration. In 2023 alone, she travelled 13 times to various destinations around the globe. The previous week on August 28, she had again enplaned to the US with a 10-hour layover at Tokyo’s Narita airport. Approaching the Japan Airlines desk to secure her boarding pass to Honolulu, desk personnel informed her that her U.S. visa had been cancelled.
Next day August 29, she was back in Manila with her daughter, diagnosed as bipolar dyslexic and whom she wanted to bring to the U.S. for treatment. She admitted that she had already known of the Quadcom hearings. In truth, she had been served a show-cause order to appear before it. Was Garma trying to escape? If so, what was she hiding?
The more peculiar question to ask perhaps is — how did the U.S. government know about her involvement in the Duterte death squad killings?
In the Arturo Lascañas affidavit submitted to the International Criminal Court, there she prominently was — Garma was so deeply into the Davao Death Squad killings even before Duterte became president. Anyone involved in the death squad was suspect, abiding by its motto that came from Duterte’s own words: “Kill everyone. Leave no one alive, so there would be no evidence.”
Lascañas first mentions Garma when he listed in his ICC affidavit “the individuals directly and indirectly connected with the DDS killing spree in Davao City: Then Police Major and now Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office General Manager Royina Garma.”
Let me quote verbatim from the Lascañas Affidavit on Garma in its unadulterated original form. The document has not only been widely quoted but had been published by Manila-based news organizations (thus not a surprise that it has reached US government authorities):
- To my recollection, it was in December 2016, a couple of days before New Year or January 2017, when then Police Lt. Colonel Royina Garma summoned me thru Police Major Lerios and Police Sergeant Jovencio Jumawan Jr., to proceed to Davao International Airport pre-departure area for an important meeting with her.
- There, at around 7:00 a.m., I met her while she was eating her breakfast. She had a flight that time going to Manila. The topic of our conversation was the nationwide war on drugs campaign of Mayor President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, and PNP Chief Ronald “Bato” Delarosa’s – “TOKHANG” operations.
- She boasted that at present, she deals directly with Bong Go, not to Sonny Buenaventura, regarding President Digong Duterte’s campaign against users and pushers of illegal drugs, particularly “Shabu,” in Metro Manila. She knew that I was directly under Sonny Buenaventura, together with Jim Tan, Ronald Lao, Jay Francia, Dionito “Pogi” Ubales, and several others. She was anticipating that after my retirement from the police service (Dec. 16, 2016), I would be in Metro Manila with my group of DDS killers to play the “Devils Game” of then Davao City Mayor Digong Duterte.
- I reiterated to her that I expect that too because Sonny Buenaventura had advised me earlier that after the swearing in of Mayor RRD as the 16th President of our country, I would need to prepare and recruit new players (hitmen) to “play” in Metro Manila, under our group’s command and control.
- Supt. Royina Garma advised me not to use or employ the group of SPO4 Jim Tan and Dionito “Pogi” Ubales, for she is positive that these policemen are covertly engaged in “Gun for hire” activities, sanctioned by Sonny Buenaventura. I feigned ignorance.
- She told me that she personally handles the “Tokhang” operations of her players (hitmen), their corresponding monthly allowances, and monetary rewards, per instruction of Bong Go. She and Supt. Edilberto Leonardo were now taking direct orders from Bong Go, and no longer from Sonny Buenaventura nor from General Bato Delarosa, because PRRD has trust issues with Sonny Buenaventura, especially on money matters, as what Bong Go told her. And I believed her. Incidentally, as my personal knowledge, Lt. Col Garma is a secret paramour of Pres. Duterte.
- Supt. Royina Garma cautioned me that our conversation is exclusive only for us, in order to avoid intrigue and disunity in Superman’s trusted men on his war on drugs campaign. Then she departed for Manila.
- Several months later, it was January 2017, I went to Metro Manila with a firm stand, and settled unity of courage and sacred purpose to expose and bring to light the deep darkness of Mayor President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, and not to play his “Devil’s Game” anymore.
On July 1, 2018, Garma was appointed as Cebu City’s first female police chief. Human rights lawyer Kristina Conti testified before the same Quadcom hearing that it was during Garma’s tenure in Cebu City that several cases of extrajudicial killings were recorded. Cebu City mayor Tomas Osmeña accused Garma as behind the spate of killings.
Garma became at odds with Osmeña who had no control of his city police chief. He said that under her watch, Cebu City had turned into a criminal city. Garma opposed Osmeña’s statement, saying that she was on the side of right. She said that the “man in Malacañang” would always stand by her.
But who stands for Bladen Skyler Abatayo? That afternoon of July 10, 2018 when Garma wasn’t even one month into her new Cebu City assignment, 4-year old Skyler had just finished doing his nursery school homework with his mother Gwynn.
His mother suddenly heard a loud bang. When she turned to Skyler, he was already bloodied and was knocked out. Frantic for help, Gwynn later fainted after calling her husband Marc on the phone. A neighbor and a cop brought Skyler to the hospital. The little boy, an only child, was pronounced dead on arrival. He was hit on the chest.
Marc said that on the morning of that fateful day, Skyler had just learned how to write his name. That was to be his last.
On that same time, Garma’s killer cops were in the Abatayo neighborhood to foil a pot session. They claimed the suspects fired back. Garma’s cops use that worn-out nanlaban (the suspects fought back) line quite cavalierly. Neighbors say there was no commotion. Police then claimed the suspects fled and were never caught. But Skyler was dead, from a bullet that Garma had brought to Cebu to carry out Duterte’s drug war.
Interviewed by media two days later, Garma said they sent a wreath of flowers to Skyler’s wake “to share in the family’s grief.” The Abatayo family returned the flowers to the police.
Last week, Garma shed tears when told by the Quadcom that they were citing her in contempt and that she was to be detained in the House for refusing to tell the truth about her close ties with Rodrigo Duterte. She told congressmen: “Who will take care of my only child?”
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
