Nothing can stop them despite the pandemic

“I believe that the war on drugs is a tragically misplaced use of resources-an immoral venture that produces far more suffering than it alleviates.”

—David Harsanyi

 

By Alex P. Vidal

 

BASED on the volume of illegal drugs, particularly shabu, confiscated by the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the number of personalities arrested most recently, it seems Western Visayas has now become a narco region.

A narco state or narco-economy is a state whose economy is dependent on the trade in illegal drugs. 

We haven’t reached this level in the Philippines hopefully, but we fear the evolution of a “narco region” once all the main tentacles of drug syndicates will not be cut off immediately.

Sadly no big fish has been added in the list in Western Visayas’ campaign against illegal drugs ever since the killings of Boyet “Dragon” Odicta and Richard “Buang” Prevendido. 

Just when we thought trafficking of illegal drugs will suffer a decline because of the pandemic, statistics based on what have been reported in the media these past months, indicated that there were still rampant transactions involving illegal drugs worth millions of pesos.

The perpetrators didn’t fear President Duterte; they didn’t fear the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

 

-o0o-

 

As if the fears of many people aren’t enough, there have been simultaneous buy bust operations in Negros and Iloilo, and many of those apprehended were former members of law enforcement or PNP personnel who have gone AWOL (absent without official leave).

It would be extremely difficult for lawmen to solve the problems on illegal drugs if some cops or former cops were involved.

This will make the campaign of the government against illegal drugs become nil if not impossible as the syndicates will not only have protection from corrupt authorities but are also controlled and managed by some of those who are sworn to eradicate the illegal drugs.    

If these illegal transactions have been going on unabated even before the COVID-19 pandemic, we suspect that the Duterte administration will go in 2022 without totally stamping out the illegal drug trade from the system of the Filipinos contrary to the administration’s pre-election campaign battlecry.

 

-o0o-

 

THERE are two types of voters in the November 3 Presidential Election  in the Filipino-American community here in the United States: the “Angry and Loud Filipinos (ALF)” and the “Calm and Silent Filipinos (CSF).”

ALF members are those who can’t hide their disappointment that in many major polls, Democratic Party’s Joseph Biden is way ahead of reelectionist President Donald Trump.

ALF members are Trump die-hards; they hate the policies of the Democrats and most of them were married to white Americans. 

When they criticize the Democrats in public, they call the political party as “demon-crats” and sneer at 77-year-old Biden for being a “Jurassic” or already “past his prime” as a politician.

ALF members also hit Biden’s runningmate, Kamala Harris as “a mistress (of a former mayor in California) and therefore a bad choice.”

ALF members also believe that “it is not necessary to wear a face mask in public because the coronavirus is a hoax and President Trump is correct; we trust our president.”

A 68-year old woman rabid ALF, who grew up in Digos in Mindanao, and a dyed-in-the-wool believer of Conspiracy Theory, has been calling fellow Filipinos to “vote for Trump because it was (former President Barrack) Obama who brought the coronavirus in America, and they intend to make us all as fertilizers when we die.” 

 

-o0o-

 

Members of the CSF, on the other hand, don’t usually criticize Mr. Trump in public. 

Most of them aren’t married to white husbands or wives. 

They acquired citizenship through other legal means, not by marrying white Americans.

“That’s why we still have a heart for immigrants and those who intend to come to America in the future,” explained one CSF member, a 57-year-old nursing assistant.

CSF members believe that if Biden and Harris will win, “the gates of more opportunities will open for Filipinos and other Asians who will pursue their American dreams in the United States.”

The dreams, CSF members said,  will be stymied “if President Trump and the Republicans will win on November 3.”

CSF members agree that Mr. Trump “didn’t take the coronavirus seriously” blaming him for the rise of the COVID-19 casualties in the United States which have breached 200,000.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ilonggo lawyer’s murder alarming

“If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence. If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end.”
--Bayard Rustin

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- We’re curious, worried and alarmed.
Are lawyers who defend in court those accused in cases involving illegal drugs also being targeted for summary execution in the Philippines?
Does lawyering for the society’s “bad elements” constitute a sin punishable by death?
Does defending the rights of the accused in narcotics cases also make lawyers enemies of the state?
Our curiosity aroused early this year when a prominent lawyer in Cebu City, Jonah John Ungab, was gunned down while driving his car in broad daylight along S. Osmena Street in Cebu City on February 19, 2018.
Ungab was the lawyer of wanted suspected drug lord Kerwin Espinosa.
Also in Cebu City on July 2, 2018, another lawyer, Salvador Solima, known for handling high profile drug cases, was killed inside his house at Singson Compound in Barangay Guadalupe.

-o0o-

On Thursday morning in Bacolod City, prominent lawyer Rafael Atutubo, 62, who handled drug-related cases, was gunned down by motorcycle-riding assailants while sitting outside his house on Galo Street, Barangay 20.
The manner the crime was executed was intriguing.
The same pattern and method.
The same purpose and reason?
Just like the recent spate of murders involving Catholic priests highly critical against the police’s operations and their alleged summarily killings of street-level drug suspects, it appears there is a trend in the killing of lawyers handling narcotics cases in the Philippines.
We hope and pray all these incidents weren’t state-sponsored and those involved in the attacks weren’t members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) like in numerous cases recently of foiled ambush attempts on drug personalities where some of the slain triggermen were organic PNP members.

-o0o-

The escalation of violence involving the campaign against illegal drugs has gone too far.
Lawyers, priests, cops, mayors, village chiefs, and journalists have been waylaid violently like stray dogs all in the name of “all out war” against illegal drugs.
And only few people are angry and willing to denounce violence, which has become the trademark of the Philippines since President Rodrigo Roa Duterte launched an aggressive campaign against illegal drugs.
We’re not saying that the police have allowed themselves to be used as “berdugos” (executioners) or tools to eliminate suspected drug dealers and drug addicts and their defenders, but they should be our protectors, not our killers.
Atutubo’s grisly murder was too much to bear for the peace-loving Filipinos who are now starting to realize that the war against illegal drugs can’t and will never be won overnight through violence.
We demand justice for all victims of extra-judicial killings; we demand the immediate end of violence in the name of war against narcotics.

‘Right move for Mabilog’

“Can you really send back people to where they are fleeing from?”
--Peter Maurer

By Alex P. Vidal

NEW YORK CITY -- Correct decision and right move.
These would have been the rapturous words of former Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog’s supporters if they got the chance to meet after the assassination most recently of two Philippine mayors which happened one day apart.
First to fall was Mayor Antonio Halili of Tanauan City, Batangas, who was shot dead by a sniper while attending the flag ceremony rites in front of the City Hall on July 3.
The next was Mayor Ferdinand Bote of General Tenio, Nueva Ecija, who was killed by assassin’s bullets while being driven out of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) compound in Cabanatuan City on July 4.

-o0o-

Halili had been included in President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s “narco list” and subsequently stripped of bodyguards and power over the police like Mabilog.
Although he was not included in Mr. Duterte’s deadly list, supporters have linked Bote’s murder to that of Halili.
Halili, who insisted he was never involved in illegal drugs, had feared for his life after Mr. Duterte reportedly believed in the “wrong” intelligence report that Halili was a “narco politician.”
The president has threatened “to kill” Mabilog several times in his speeches since last year, insisting that the Ilonggo mayor “is the cousin of slain drug lord Boyet Odicta.”
Based on our own recollection, the president has issued the threats to kill Mabilog seven times in different occasions and places.
His latest tirade against Mabilog was in front of Philippine councilors in Iloilo City two weeks ago.

-o0o-

Like Halili, Mabilog, a Liberal Party (LP) member, repeatedly insisted he was never engaged in illegal drugs and he isn’t related to Odicta.
Mabilog is the second cousin of opposition Senator Franklin Drilon.
The president refused to listen.
He nixed any possible meeting with Mabilog
He did not believe Mabilog and continued to tarnish the mayor’s name in various gatherings where he was invited as the speaker.
Before he was ordered dismissed by the Office of the Ombudsman in October 2017 for “unexplained wealth”, Mabilog had already decided not to return in the Philippines after attending a series of conferences in Japan and Malaysia.
His wife, Marivic, and their two children, citing security concerns, left the country and joined him in an undisclosed location.
Aside from Halili and Bote, three mayors linked to illegal drugs have been killed under the Duterte administration.
They were: Samsudin Dimaukom of Datu Saudi Ampatuan in Mindanao; Rolando Espinosa of Albuera, Leyte in the Visayas; and Reynaldo Parohinog of Ozamiz City in Mindanao.
Their deaths were all links to the Duterte administration’s “all-out” war against illegal drugs.