On July 30, 2020, Wesley Barayuga was driving home from his office in Mandaluyong City when a lone gunman on a motorcycle appeared from behind and pumped several bullets into his head and body.
The retired general, also a lawyer, who was the board secretary at the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), did not survive.
It was over four years later when the truth about the assassination of General Barayuga came to light — at a congressional hearing.
Two men, including a police lieutenant colonel, came forward to admit they were involved in the general’s death, but said they were misled to believe that Barayuga was a high-value target in Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
The Eastern Police District and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) investigated the murder of Barayuga, a member of the Philippine Military Academy class of 1983.
They have two theories for the murder — personal grudge or his work at the PCSO.
Surprisingly, his involvement in the illegal drug trade surfaced only a month after he was killed, when the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said Barayuga was included in the drug list that month.
But, before August 2020, Barayuga was never on Duterte’s drug list.
The two men — Lt. Col. Santi Mendoza and Nelson Mariano — had signed sworn statements and openly told a lower house joint panel that two police colonels with close ties to the former president ordered Barayuga’s killing.
Then a police major, Mendoza said he got a call from Police Col. Edilberto Leonardo in October 2019 informing him of a special project to neutralize a certain Wesley Barayuga who was supposedly a high-value target in the drug war.
In the police hierarchy, Leonardo had no direct role in the drug war and he was no longer in the PNP after he was appointed to a civilian position at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Mendoza was also not assigned to the drug enforcement unit. He used to be head of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) drug enforcement unit, but when got the call, he was already assigned to the office of the late PNP chief Camilo Cascolan as a security officer.
But who would turn down a “job” assigned by Colonel Leonardo, who was believed to be the closest official to the president?
It was common knowledge in the PNP that the former president listened to Colonel Leonardo.
According to Antipolo congressman Romeo Acop, a former PNP general, former PNP chief and now senator Ronald de la Rosa, was not comfortable with Leonardo because he knew the police colonel can whisper many things to the leader.
Based on Mendoza’s testimony, Leonardo told him that the killing was ordered by another police officer, Royina Garma, who was then appointed to PCSO as general manager in 2019.
Garma is also close to the former president.
In another controversial case, Leonardo and Garma were tagged as the masterminds in the brutal killing of three Chinese drug lords at the Davao Penal Colony in August 2016.
Mendoza knew the consequences if he did not carry out the orders of Leonardo and Garma. It could endanger his life and his family’s.
Mendoza went to work, tasking his reliable informant Nelson Mariano to look for a gunman to carry out the assassination. Mariano found a certain “Loloy.”
The coronavirus pandemic intervened, making it difficult to put a tail on Barayuga and establish a pattern of his daily travel.
What made it more difficult was that Barayuga was taking public transport in reporting for work and returning home.
The PCSO general manager, Col. Royina Garma, solved the problem. She acquired a fleet of vehicles for PCSO officials and managers and assigned a white pickup truck to Barayuga.
In July, Leonardo contacted Mendoza again and informed him of the planned vehicle assignment to Barayuga.
He also coordinated with a certain “Toks,” a police officer, in detail with the office of Garma.
Mendoza tasked Mariano to see Toks at the PCSO office where the latter gave the vehicle description and plate number. He also provided a photo of Barayuga taken from an online PCSO board meeting.
Leonardo’s final instruction was to make the hit near Barayuga’s office in Mandaluyong City, where Col. Hector Grijaldo, a classmate of Garma at the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA), was the police chief.
After the hit, Mendoza said Garma rewarded them with P300,000. Mariano gave P200,000 to “Loloy” and kept P60,000, and then gave P40,000 to Mendoza.
At the same congressional hearing, Leonardo and Garma denied what Leonardo and Mariano narrated to the lawmakers.
Garma said he did not know Mendoza and never met him.
Leonardo said Mendoza was never assigned as a subordinate to him.
However, Mendoza and Mariano’s testimonies prompted congressmen to recommend the filing of murder charges against Leonardo and Garma.
The lawmakers instructed the Department of Justice and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to take a second look at Barayuga’s killing.
The congressmen believed Barayuga was killed because he was about to expose the corruption inside the PCSO under Gsrma.
He was about to give documents to the NBI that was investigating anomalies in the agency.
In the same public hearing, Garma had admitted appointing her daughter and relatives to key positions in the PCSO.
She also awarded friends, including Leonardo and his classmates, franchises to operate Small Town Lottery (STL) operations in Batangas and Cebu, both lucrative areas.
But one surprising revelation also came to light when Garma’s classmate and former husband, who was assigned as police attache in the United States, was able to invest in a restaurant in Las Vegas.
It appeared that he got some help from the PCSO when some P50 million in two tranches were exchanged to US dollars and sent to him in California.
The money was personally handed over by a police corporal, a first cousin of Garma who was also assigned in the PCSO, to a police captain running errands for Garma’s ex-husband.
The murder and plunder in the PCSO must be investigated deeply because Garma and Leonardo, who was also no longer with the PNP in 2019, were involved in the war on drugs, eliminating those who opposed it and those against their personal interests.
Garma and Leonardo had taken advantage of their close relations with former president Duterte to emerge as the most powerful police officials.
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