Du30 police cohort Garma seeking US asylum–lawyer
Retired Police Col. Royina Garma is seeking asylum in the United States where she remains detained, according to her lawyer, Emerito Quilang.
“Actually, we are asking for a [re]setting [of a hearing] because we are requesting asylum. But you know, the US government is very strict. That’s why there’s no setting yet of our request—hearing for the request of asylum,” Quilang told reporters at the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday.
The lawyer noted that the asylum request was set for an initial hearing on April 2 but this was canceled and has not yet been rescheduled.
Garma, a key witness in the congressional inquiry into extrajudicial killings during the drug war under the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, had bared a reward system for the police applied by the former president in the liquidation of drug suspects.
Garma was one of Duterte’s trusted aides after serving as a police station commander in Davao City where the latter was longtime mayor.
In November last year, Garma fled to the United States but was arrested due to a canceled visa.
‘Under detention’
Quilang noted that “there is actually no case filed against her in the United States.”
“She is [under] detention because she went there without the necessary papers. So upon landing there, they took her,” he said.
The United States under Donald Trump’s administration has adopted a stricter immigration policy which has also drawn controversy for its sweeping enforcement.
Quilang also refuted earlier reports that Garma was held in the United States for alleged money laundering and human rights violations, as Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla had claimed earlier.
“That’s all it is—she did not have a valid visa when she flew to the United States,” the lawyer said.
Barayuga case
Quilang was at the DOJ on Monday for the preliminary investigation of the murder and frustrated murder complaints filed against his client, in connection with the July 30, 2020, killing of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) board secretary Wesley Barayuga.
The murder charges were filed in February by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation.
Barayuga, a lawyer and former police brigadier general, was shot dead in broad daylight by a motorcycle-riding gunman in Mandaluyong City while he was on his way home. His driver survived the ambush.
During a hearing in September last year by the quad committee of the House of Representatives, Police Lt. Col. Santie Mendoza and his informant, Nelson Mariano, confessed to their involvement in Barayuga’s murder and said they were taking orders from then National Police Commissioner Edilberto Leonardo—who in turn pointed to Garma, at that time the PCSO general manager, as the mastermind.
Based on the progress report of the quad committee, lawmakers recommended that Garma be charged with violating Republic Act No. 9851, or the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity.
She was also recommended to be charged with murder for her alleged involvement in the Aug. 13, 2016, killing of three convicted Chinese drug lords at Davao Prison and Penal Farm. —WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH
