Clipped wings

THE President has fired Vice President Ma. Leonor Robredo as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs only 18 days after appointing her, while his self-appointed deadline of three to six months of ridding the drug menace in the country has been due some three years ago.

Malacañang spokesman Salvador Panelo has been quoted as saying that Vice President Robredo has been fired for allegedly using the war on drugs for politicking.

Well, let us review what the vice president did in those 18 days. However, it is going to be a shortlist considering the number of days she co-chaired Icad.

The vice president demanded transparency and access to documents and intelligence reports. To this, Icad appeared rattled. The President’s minions at the anti-drug body kept spouting suspicious statements like she didn’t have the right to have that list or that she should just focus on improving the advocacy and rehabilitation clusters of the committee.

She also recommended that the committee switch to a health-based approach rather than killing drug suspects left and right.

Butch Olano, section director of Nobel-laureate Amnesty International Philippines, hit the nail squarely in the head when posited that Robredo was booted out because in the 18 days she held the office of Icad co-chair it was getting clearer that she was taking the job seriously.

She demanded real reforms to the anti-drug campaign of this administration.

“Every week, more cracks appear in the Duterte administration’s murderous campaign against poor people. In only a few weeks, Vice President Robredo was able to confront the government with the staggering scale of its crimes. That is why she was sacked,” Olano said in a statement Sunday evening.

Now, more than ever, it is clear that Robredo’s appointment was a mere publicity stunt and a bluff since the war drug has captured the attention of international human rights bodies, including the United Nations.

Methinks, they didn’t count on Robredo to call their bluff. That’s the reason why this administration has been hell-bent in denying her access to information surrounding the bloody anti-drug campaign of the President. The President had clipped the wings he gave her.

So, I ask you now, my dear readers, how could she possibly perform the tasks as co-chair? Who do you think is serious in stamping out the drug menace in our country? Pfft.

Czar lang

WHY are the supposed anti-illegal drugs advocates so afraid of what the Veep could accomplish as the newly appointed co-chair of this administration’s war on drugs?

I honestly ask this question to myself. Since President Rodrigo Duterte appointed Vice President Ma. Leonor Robredo to share the helm of the campaign against illegal drugs, all of the former’s minions and trolls have nothing but sarcastic and downright insulting comments directed at the latter.

On Sunday, National Police officer-in-charge Lt. Gen. Archie Gamboa added to the long list of “mansplainers” of the Palace.

ABS-CBN News quoted Gamboa as saying that Robredo “should focus on improving the advocacy and rehabilitation clusters of her committee, and leave the campaign’s law enforcement side to relevant agencies such as the PNP and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.”

Has he read Robredo’s appointment papers? Does he know his place in the chain of command as far as the war on drugs is concerned? Being the co-chair of the entire campaign means that Robredo is right there beside the President at the very top rung of the ladder. If her appointment is to be graphed, her name would have a broken line right beside the President. In that graph, Gamboa is nowhere even near the top. He is an enforcer and should know his place.

Gamboa, sir, please leave the thinking and policy-making to people who are mandated to do just that. It’s not like you have done a bang-up job in enforcing the law.

Last week, the head of the anti-narcotics agency said Robredo may have been “misinformed” when she said China is the top source of narcotics in the Philippines. The guy seemed to forget that he said the very same thing last year. He said China is the top source of shabu circulating in the country.

Of course, we also have to mention senator cum presidential nanny Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, who went so far as suggesting that Robredo does not have the heart to kill drug lords. He said Robredo could just whisper the names of the drug lords to him so he can do the killing. That is so rich coming from a man who has done absolutely nothing in abating the still burgeoning illegal drug trade in the country.

Also, is the nanny admitting that the killings have been state-sponsored all these years? He has said these things like he has done it before. Could he please name the names of drug lords that this administration has ordered to be liquidated? The International Crimes Court could surely use that piece of information.

He said the President’s war on drugs is successful, pointing to the 82 percent approval rating of the people as shown in the September 2019 survey of the Social Weather Station.

Approval ratings are propaganda tools and should not be equated as actual performance ratings. The presidential nanny would do well to note that in that very same survey, 95 percent of the respondents felt that it was more “important” for the drug suspects to be caught and not killed.

 I will not mention that closet queen in Batasan Hills. His-her-its inane asides against Robredo does not warrant a response of any kind.

It has been three years since this bloody campaign started and where has it gotten us? So, why not give Robredo a chance. Like what the P10-million network of trolls of this administration always says on social media platforms, “tumulong na lang kayo.” Czar ninyong tanan uip! Pfft

Inclusive relief, please

OUR family, having been survivors of a devastating calamity, has seen both the best and the worst in people after a seemingly hopeless aftermath.

We saw neighbors, who have lost almost everything to the great deluge in 2011, still managed to distribute to the neighborhood whatever they had left. I remember a neighbor who gave away his bread and rice cake (puto) instead of selling them as he normally did before the flood. Some neighbors opened their doors to people whose houses were swept away by the rampaging floodwaters.

However, there is also a dark side to the altruistic nature of man after a calamity — greed. Yes, we all needed relief aid at that time still others were not content with what was given to them voluntarily.

We saw neighbors looting a UN relief truck on its way to the relief distribution center in Consolacion Elementary School. They couldn’t wait in line and so they hijacked the relief truck while in transit. We saw people hoarding relief goods and then opening up instant sari-sari stores months after “Sendong.”

The Sendong experience both humbled and opened my eyes to certain realities. No matter how many times you tell people not to panic, they will. No matter how many times you tell people to fall in line for the relief goods, some of them will not.

That’s why I understand the government’s drive to organize relief distributions. It ensures that all survivors get their share of the donations. This is to avoid pandemonium in relief distribution centers or in the calamity-stricken areas.

Our barangay chairman then, the late Cesar Pagapulaan Sr., ordered that all donations be centralized in our barangay hall for proper distribution. He is, after all, the village chief and would know who needed the donations most.

I understood that order. However, despite that order, he did not physically deter anyone from giving directly to the survivors. I guess he understood that some people are wary of how the government distributes relief goods (e.g politically motivated lists).

Although he didn’t make one except for the official list of our barangay’s residents, he knew somewhere above his station some people are riding the relief operations with their own political agenda in mind.

This is the reason why I was perplexed with the latest order of the martial law administrator issued on All Souls’ Day in the aftermath of the series of earthquakes that rocked North Cotabato, Davao del Sur, and other neighboring towns.

“The (checkpoints) shall control and screen the ingress and egress of the people in the evacuation center that only legitimate and authorized relief workers are granted access to evacuation centers and receive relief goods and supplies for distributions for the evacuees,” reads part of Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana.

Apparently, according to Lorenzana, there is such a thing as illegitimate and unauthorized relief operations after calamities occur in the country. If so, the martial law administrator didn’t elaborate on why this is so.

First, people will help people. You don’t need a license or authorization to help people. That puto vendor who distributed his wares free of charge after Sendong didn’t have to go to the city hall to ask for permission to do so.

I can’t believe the audacity of this administration to refuse getting “upstaged” by private citizens who want to help. Relief is a relief. It should not have any political color — be it yellow, red, green, brown, or blue.

Lorenzana goes on to say that Cotabato province has welcomed the putting up of checkpoints, or should I say relief clearinghouses, to “avoid duplication or concentrations of the distribution of relief goods.”

As documented by reporters on the ground, most of the quake survivors have resorted to begging for relief along the national highway. So, I don’t understand the duplication Lorenzana is trying to avoid when most of the survivors have not received relief goods yet.

Everybody’s help is needed, sir. A “legitimate” and “authorized” relief operations sound so exclusive. The quake survivors need inclusive relief right now. Now is not the time to be insecure about the people’s capacity to help.

Also, the last time I checked calamities, whether under the preparedness aspect or relief operations, are under the purview of the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Department of Social Welfare and Development, respectively. So, why the order, Mr. Defense Secretary? Pfft.