That ‘narco list’ again
AT least some members of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class 1983 have condemned their fellow PMAyer PMGen. Debold Sinas for linking lawyer Wesley Barayuga, their classmate, to drugs. Barayuga, the board secretary of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), was shot dead by a motorcycle- riding assassin in Mandaluyong City last July 30.
Barayuga was a retired police general.
PMGen. Sinas, chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) National Capital Region, announced that during a background check on the victim, “[W]e noticed that nandoon siya sa list (We noticed that he was on the list),” referring to President Rodrigo Duterte’s list of policemen, public officials and civilians purportedly involved in drugs. The names of several police officers who were holding or had recently held positions in Iloilo City were found in the original list from 2016.
The slain PCSO secretary admitted to the Philippine Bar in May 1999 was the Iloilo City chief of police from 2006 to 2008. He held various positions in the police regional office, but by January 2013, he was assigned to Camp Crame. Barayuga retired in 2014 and joined PCSO in 2018. A Google search yielded negative results for any controversy connected with him, including drugs.
Relatives, friends and people who had worked with Barayuga reacted strongly to Sinas’ remark. The strongest condemnation came from Barayuga’s PMA classmates: “He was never involved in drugs, not in any period of his entire career. Was that sudden drug issue a smokescreen to cover up the orchestrated murder of a man filled with integrity and honor who works by the book and conscience?” It is “best for people to know who Sinas is in Cebu before and at NCRPO (National Capital Region Police Office) now and who the investigators are from Mandaluyong...And people should know if Sinas has a connection with any top official at PCSO.” This was posted in the PMA Class ‘83 chat group, according to the Daily Guardian (Aug. 5, 2020).
Sinas headed the Police Regional Office 7 from June 2018 to October 2019. There were about 330 extrajudicial killings reported in Cebu alone during this time. The victims included incumbent government officials and police officers. The local police connected most victims to drugs. Drugs, even with no evidence produced, seems to be the magic word that makes otherwise concerned citizens look the other way.
Mikee Nazal, Barayuga’s niece, reminds us that this is wrong. “Do not be desensitized,” she writes in a public post on Facebook. “If you are to grieve with us, then be angry with us. If you are to pray for us, pray for justice.”
Sinas’ “connection with any top official at PCSO” must be Royina Garma, vice president and general manager ( GM) of PCSO. She headed the Cebu City Police Office when Sinas was regional
director. She left Cebu and the police service in June 2019 to take up the GM position at PCSO. This was a position previously held by retired Marine Gen. Alexander Balutan. Balutan and the PCSO President and Chairman, PGen. Anselmo Pinili, are members of PMA Class 1983.
There were times that then-Col. Garma appeared like Gen. Sinas’ boss despite the latter’s seniority in rank and position. This, of course, is likely attributed to Garma’s closeness to President Duterte since her years in Davao City.
Mandaluyong police chief Col. Hector Grijaldo Jr. was then commander of the Regional Mobile Force Battalion. He was relieved as Cebu City Police Office Director last April after less than a month in office.
Did Sinas bring out the drug angle because he seriously believed in it or was it another case of the general “spinning a yarn?” Some of us in Cebu City remember well the strange narratives of the general in connection with the deaths of PSSg. Eugene Calumba, PMSg. Roderick Balili and PCpl. Feliciano Yballe. Sinas’ version of events contradicted physical evidence and common sense. Yballe was identified, through evidence, as the triggerman in the killing of fellow policeman PMSgt. Junard Cinco. Yballe was subsequently killed by policemen who caught up with him at his home; yet, Sinas cleared him. Balili, according to Sinas, was accidentally shot twice in the chest with his own gun when evidence suggested he was shot by his believed target. Calumba was shot dead by the driver-bodyguard of his believed target, but the official story was that he was shot in an unprovoked assault.
On the same day that Barayuga was murdered, PMGen. Sinas had a big score the arrest of fugitive Ruben Ecleo Jr. This is the kind of work we want to see from the police: diligent intelligence work that brings criminals to justice.
As for the murder of Wesley Barayuga, the simple question is, as Los Angeles Police Department detective Harry Bosch in the TV series “Bosch” would put it, “Who benefits?” The work angle is hard to dismiss considering the huge sums of money involved in lotto and small-town-lottery operations.