‘Narco-general’ Garbo involved in 2014 Bilibid 'sham' drug raid — Magalong

Philippine National Police (PNP) deputy chief for operations Director Benjamin Magalong on Wednesday revealed that retired police general Marcelo Garbo Jr. were among those who conducted the alleged sham raid in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in December 2014.

During a questioning by Cebu Rep. Gwendolyn Garcia, Magalong said those who conducted the raid together with then Justice Secretary Leila De Lima were then Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) director Franklin Bucayu, then Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) executive director General Villasanta, and then PNP deputy director for operations General Garbo.

“We are not privy to the particular task of General Garbo but considering the fact that he was the then deputy chief PNP for operations, probably he was there to supervise the PNP [personnel] involved in the operation,” Magalong said when asked by Garcia on the involvement of Garbo in the December 2014 raid.

Garbo was among the five former and incumbent police generals earlier named by President Rodrigo Duterte as allegedly being involved in the illegal drug trade.

Duterte said Garbo was a “protector of drug syndicates.”

Garbo, who retired from the PNP in March of this year, had vehemently denied the allegation.

At the earlier part of his testimony, Magalong said the plan to conduct a massive raid in the NBP was originally hatched in April 2014 by the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) at the time when he headed the agency.

Magalong said he proposed the plan dubbed as “Oplan Cronus” to De Lima in May 2014 but the latter called for more planning sessions together with officials of other law enforcement agencies.

Magalong said De Lima told him to wait for the joint letter of instruction (LOI) from her office and the office of then Interior Secretary Mar Roxas before proceeding with the implementation of Oplan Cronus but the LOI never came.

Magalong said sometime in September 2014, Bucayu, accompanied by Villasanta, visited him in the CIDG office and asked him not to proceed with the NBP raid.

Magalong said instead of acceding to Bucayu’s request, he just arranged a meeting between the latter and De Lima.

Magalong said that after that after Bucayu’s visit, he later learned that the DOJ had already excluded the CIDG and the PDEA from the raid operation.

De Lima, accompanied by some personnel of the NBI and the PNP, conducted a raid in the NBP maximum security compound on December 15, 2014 where several lavish kubols or quarters of the inmates were discovered. Some illegal drugs were also seized.

The raid eventually led to the transfer of 19 high-profile inmates, dubbed as the “Bilibid 19,” from the NBP to the NBI facility in Manila.

However, on Tuesday’s hearing, NBP inmates Rodolfo Magleo and Herbert Colanggo testified that the transfer of the “Bilibid 19” was orchestrated by gang leader Jaybee Sebastian supposedly to monopolize the drug trade in NBP.

Magleo testified that Sebastian paid De Lima P10 million for the transfer of the Bilibid 19.

Magleo said Sebastian also pooled money from the illegal drug trade to finance the 2016 senatorial bid of De Lima.

Meanwhile, Colanggo testified that aside from De Lima, Bucayu also used to receive commissions from the illegal drug trade in NBP. — VVP, GMA News