Colonel faces graft case for allegedly using cops as construction workers

Remember Police Colonel Hector Grijaldo, the police officer who alleged two years ago that he was coerced by members of the House of Representatives to confirm the reward system in the drug war?

Now, he is now an accused in a graft case pending with the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan.

The reason? Grijaldo allegedly turned cops – his subordinates – into construction workers and ordered them to build a private property in Cebu City.

According to the Office of the Ombudsman charge sheet seen by reporters on Thursday, February 12, the police colonel and retired police master sergeant Jesus Batobalonos are facing a criminal case for alleged violation of section 3(e) of Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.

From August 2019 to April 2020, Grijaldo and Batobalonos – who are serving at the Philippine National Police Regional Mobile Force Battalion in Central Visayas – allegedly took advantage of their positions and “unlawfully and criminally” used their subordinates for the construction of a private structure in Sitio Cantipla, Barangay Tabunan, Cebu City. The property belongs to Grijaldo.

“[The act resulted in the injury] to the Government in the amount of NINE MILLION FOUR HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE THOUSAND AND ONE HUNDRED FORTY-FOUR PESOS (P9,435,144) more or less, representing the salaries paid to the said police officers, along with the resources of the PNP used to transport the officers to the construction site,” read part of the information sheet.

Who is Grijaldo?

The public first heard of Grijaldo in 2024, when the House’s quad committee brought up the murder case of retired police general Wesley Barayuga.

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Former police colonel Royina Garma, Grijaldo’s classmate, was tagged as the alleged brains behind the killing. Barayuga was killed in Mandaluyong City in 2020, and Grijaldo was the chief of police at the time, so he was also called by the quad committee when it looked into the circumstances surrounding the murder.

Garma is considered the whistleblower in former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, after confirming in 2024 the existence of a reward system in police operations that killed thousands of people during the previous administration.

But although Garma and Grijaldo are “mistahs,” the latter sang to a different tune in October 2024 and claimed that House quad committee co-chairpersons Dan Fernandez and Bienvenido Abante instructed him to confirm the drug war reward scheme. Grijaldo said he refused to corroborate Garma’s testimony because he supposedly had no knowledge about the reward scheme.

“It’s like they wanted me to lie,” Grijaldo said during a Senate hearing in 2024.

Grijaldo was ordered detained on two occasions after the House quad committee cited him in contempt. The first was in December 2024, for his failure to attend the hearing despite four invitations from the “mega-panel.” The other one was in January 2025, for his refusal to respond to the lawmakers’ questions during a House hearing. – Rappler.com