THEN Cebu City mayor Tomas Osmeña was promptly given one warning after personally reporting to President Rodrigo Duterte what he believed was Police Col. Royina Garma's P1 million-a-month payola from illegal gambling in Cebu: Don't touch the Duterte women. Although no names were mentioned by the intermediary who relayed the message to Tommy Osmeña, it was implied that Garma was one of the favored 'Duterte women.' The story of the warning was revealed by Mr. Osmeña himself — under oath — to the House of Representatives at a recent congressional inquiry.

Nothing came out of Mr. Osmeña's report to the former president on Garma's alleged payola. From her post as Cebu City police chief — part of her mandate was harassing Osmeña — Garma leapfrogged, after her life at the Philippine National Police (PNP), into one of the most coveted non-Cabinet positions in government, that of general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), a post as coveted as Bureau of Internal Revenue and Bureau of Customs commissioner. Garma, like many of the trusted people of Mr. Duterte, was neither a dynamic leader nor a policy visionary during her term as head of the PCSO. She was something else.