The list

“There are three kinds of people in this world: 1) People who make lists, 2) people who don’t make lists, and 3) people who carve tiny Nativity scenes out of pecan hulls. I’m sorry, there isn’t really a third category; it’s just that a workable list needs a minimum of three items, I feel.” – Mary Roach, American author

AS promised, my column this week will be about the mystery of Digong Dada’s ever-changing list of narco-politicians or illegal drugs trade matrix or whatever it is now.

Don’t get me wrong. I, too, hoped the list would usher in an honest to goodness change. I thought the way the executive deals with politicians and technocrats who have been wheeling and dealing in the illegal drugs trade was about to change.

I bet everybody was as shocked as I was when Digong Dada started naming generals, judges, and politicians. When the President started bandying the list to the public eye last year, I thought, here’s a President who isn’t afraid to take on the cabals of corrupt bureaucrats.

However, when people started to inquire who helped the President draw up such list, he was suddenly withdrawn, secretive, and most often irked by the mere mention of such inquiry.

It didn’t help either that the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the National Bureau of Investigation admitted that they were not, in any way, involved in the preparation of such list as reported by GMA news online on Aug. 30 last year.

Then PDEA Director General Isidro Lapeña (now Bureau of Customs top honcho), emphatically told a congressional hearing at the Lower House that they did not give any inputs which form part of the President’s list. NBI lawyer Henry Canapi, on the same congressional inquiry, sang to the same exact tune. Canapi said they did not submit any “subject personalities, politicians or otherwise.”

By the way, Lapeña doubled-down by saying he was unsure whether other agencies have been advising the President on the alleged drug lords in government, including the Philippine National Police.

Let’s fast-forward to the present. The question still remains. If PDEA, NBI, and the PNP didn’t help the President in drawing the list then who are these supposed intelligence consultants who helped draw up that list?

If the President’s list is to be believed, then how come the shady characters behind the P6.4 billion worth of shabu that passed through the Bureau of Customs weren’t on that list? Why is the President suddenly mum on the list?

Last week, he even advised his son to remain silent should the circus show, led by The Dick, summon him to explain the supposed role of the Davao Group in what could very well be the largest drug bust this administration’s war on drugs has ever carried out.

If the President’s list is to be believed, then why is he not helping the Senate committee investigate the butt-load of shabu that inexplicably passed through people who are highly motivated and passionate in ending the drug scourge that has gripped the nation?

As I have said before, anybody can draw up a list. Hell, even our emotionally detached, spectacularly inefficient, and grossly ineffective barangay chair drew up such a list. The bigots at our local church even contributed to the list. The list, I was told, is based on “common knowledge” which I take as a euphemism for grapevine or chismis.

I have a friend who is a member of a local intelligence unit. For obvious reasons, I will not name him. As he told me, he’d have to kill me if he gets “burned.” This friend showed me their list as well.

It is a list of local drug personalities who are under surveillance. It could have been a veritable kill list, he added. But in the wake of the incorrigible murder of 17-year old Kian Loyd delos Santos, he said they have to extend the time frames of their surveillance on these individuals. He said they wanted to be sure that when not if, they do “neutralize” these drug personalities they have more than sufficient evidence to do so. He added they will not base their decision on a Facebook post like what the Caloocan police did.

The list holds some familiar names. It has former city councilors, former mayors, and former house representatives in it. Curiously, the list even has a columnist in it, a very vocal supporter of his Excellency. My friend said they have been on to him for quite some time now.

Whether my friend’s list or that of the President are credible will remain questionable at best for as long as the people behind the drawing of such lists remain shady and unnamed. For as long as the process behind the drawing of those lists remains questionable, these will remain as such.

I repeat anybody can draw up a list. If I were to draw up such a list, I would list first all the people who have wronged me or pose a threat to taking away my power to draw up a list.

Just consider the quote above: Any workable list needs a minimum of three items. It doesn’t need due process, supporting evidence, or any modicum of rule of law. These three items, by the way, is a workable list. A list of things which we direly need in government right now.