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

The mystery of the script

“Impunity thrives not so much through actively putting up obstacles to accountability. More than anything, it is nurtured by apathy and inaction of governments and people.” -Nonoy Espina, chairman, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines

IT is good that the city council’s committee on police and public safety would finally be looking into the spate of anti-drug operation killings here. Hats off, also, to Camp Alagar for admitting there is something amiss when deadly force seems to be the response of choice of its operatives. They are, after all, law enforcers.

This show of concern happened after, more or less, 10 people have been killed here in the city.

Camp Alagar spokesman Supt. Surki Sereñas said all of the officers involved in the anti-drug operation killings are undergoing investigation and could be slapped with administrative cases. He said their Internal Affairs Service would be recommending to the top brass of Camp Alagar after its investigation.

However, Sereñas said the IAS recommendation for the anti-drug operation killings in the city would be based on the reports from the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office.

This means that internal affairs investigators will be depending on what the post-operation reports say, which have been filed by the anti-drug operatives. Yes, I know. This almost sounds like a conflict of interest but we have to give our police force the presumption of regularity.

Presumption of regularity, by the way, is a legal precept that assumes government bodies have properly discharged their official mandates. In this case, we assume that the anti-drug operatives followed the protocols in the conduct of anti-drug operations to the letter.

So, let’s look at the post operations report of the operatives. This paper found disturbing and uncanny similarities in almost all of the anti-drug operation killings in the city.

“The similarities in the cases are striking. In nearly all the shooting deaths, the slain suspects had no cash except the marked money of P500, more or less, had a few sachets of suspected shabu, were armed with caliber .38 revolvers or, at times, caliber .45 pistols and/or grenades. According to the police, those killed allegedly fired shots but missed after sensing that they were dealing with undercover cops, and then got shot and killed,” this paper reported.

In the spirit of logic and public service, join me as we deconstruct this narrative. Let’s dissect it.

First, the slain drug suspects (emphasis on suspects) had no cash with them. Most of them only had the buy-bust money, usually amounting to P500. Keep in mind that these buy-bust operations usually happen at night or in the wee hours. This tells us that these poor unfortunate souls are crappy at what they do — selling drugs. If they were any good, they should have at least P1,000 cash in them at the time of the bust. Drug dealers, as we’ve seen in movies and read in books, are movers. They move illegal merchandise as fast as they can.

However, I understand the part were operatives find only a few sachets of suspected shabu. Common sense will tell you that it wouldn’t be sensible to be lugging around kilos of illegal merchandise as they sell on the streets. As we’ve seen kilos of illegal merchandise are the customs’ cup of tea.

Second, and to me, the most disturbing part is that these slain drug suspects, armed with either a .38 caliber revolvers, .45 caliber pistols and/or fragmentation grenades, have the lamest aims.

Let’s consider the narrative that the armed drug suspects supposedly fired shots at the poseur-buyer cops they were dealing with but missed and were killed as the police returned fire since their lives were endangered.

We have seen how small a sachet of shabu is based on the post-operation photo documentation. It is so small you have to be at least a foot away to be able to hand it. To be able to shoot the poseur-buyer, one has to whip out their concealed weapon, aim, and shoot the undercover cop.

During these flurry of actions, the drug suspect and the undercover cop are standing only a foot away from each other. Can’t the poseur-buyer grapple from the drug suspect’s gun as the latter is whipping it out? How can a drug suspect shoot the poseur-buyer, again a foot away from them, when a human arm when it is aiming is at least three feet in length? Don’t our cops train in hand-to-hand combat?

It is almost the same series of movement when it is a grenade. The drug suspect has to get the grenade out of the pocket, pull the pin, and lob the grenade.

An M67 fragmentation grenade, for example, has a killing radius of five meters and a casualty-producing radius of 15 meters. Its fragments could spread to as far as 230 meters. With this in mind, shouldn’t the cop wrestle the drug suspect before he could take the grenade from his pocket?

Deadly force should be the cops’ last resort. I remember a raid in Sto. Niño, years back. Now that operation needed deadly force since the narcotics agents were fired upon from a distance.

These dead sad sacs must be the worst drug dealers in the illegal drugs trade. It is either that or our police need to revise their seemingly “pro-forma” post-anti-drug operations reports.

Narcos and corruption

“But it (war on drugs) can’t be won. It’ll never be won. At least not until people see it for what it is. Not until they know the truth.” – DEA agent Javier Peña, Narcos season 3, episode 10

AT the base of any successful illegal trafficking, be it in the flesh or drug trade is a cabal of corrupt elected politicians and bureaucrats. That is what agent Peña realized by the end of season 3. He had been fighting the government’s war on drugs which has long been bought and paid for by the drug cartels in Colombia.

In Narcos 3, the US Drug Enforcement Agency and Colombian government are hot on the trail of the Cali drug cartel led by the Rodriguez-Orjuela brothers. These drug traffickers were different from Pablo Escobar of the Medellin cartel in that they operate with precision like a multinational corporation.

“Another deal. A compromise. A charade. A way for governments who don’t give a s**t about the war they’re supposed to be fighting, to go on pretending they’re winning it,” Peña’s soliloquy at the season ender rued.

In the series, Peña was getting more and more frustrated since he couldn’t seem to pin down the Cali cartel. As it turned out, the cartel “owned” the Office of the President of Colombia.

Ironically, Ernesto Samper won the presidency by campaigning against cocaine trafficking with campaign funds paid for by the Cali cartel. Although Peña and the US Embassy in Colombia had a taped conversation between Miguel Rodriguez Orjuela and Samper and the ledger which proved the existence of offshore shell companies, they were not able to pin down Samper even for charges of collusion to traffic drugs.

My take away lesson on this particular TV series is that no matter how hard and bloody you fight against illegal drugs if the system in government is vulnerable to corruption, the war on drugs will never be won.

A case in point is the P6.4 billion worth of shabu that breezed through the Bureau of Customs. One can easily be confused with the smokescreens of those who do not want the truth to be out. Guilty people can and have always hidden behind technicalities and legal loopholes. But the fact of the matter is, a butt load of illegal drugs was able to enter the country from the People’s Republic of China.

Like what Peña did, one need only to examine the supply chain and its subsequent flow of grease money to understand that the bigger scourge gripping a country is not the drugs itself but the rampant corruption, the wheeling, and dealing, the compromises, the charades, in the very halls of power.

Until this administration realizes that, we will continue to witness bodies of young and old, mostly poor, pile up.

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.

Let’s kill the cats

WHILE my friend and I were shooting the breeze last Friday, I noticed our ceiling was already quite decrepit. One of the ceiling boards looked like it sagged in the middle part and was ready to fall anytime.

My friend, who repaired our stairway before, explained that the ceiling joists where the ceiling board was nailed to are already rotten. Whenever the cats walk across our ceiling, the nails could not hold the weight, and that’s why one of the ceiling boards is sagging in the middle, he added.

Before I continue, I should let you know that Crow’s Nest is really old. It was built during the “liberation” of the Philippines from the clutches of the Empire of Japan. It’s almost entirely made out of wood. Even the foundations are made of Narra unlike the houses of today which are made of concrete.

My friend offered two options to remedy my ceiling problem.

One, I could replace the whole ceiling construction with new wood for the rotten ceiling joists and replace the ceiling boards which are only 1/4” thick, with the sturdier 2” marine plywood.

Now, my friend said this will surely cost a lot. The materials and manpower, he added, could cost me at least P20 thousand. My friend also said there’s the time frame of the repairs to consider — his modest estimation was that it could take three weeks to replace the whole thing.

The problem is that I can’t spare that much money, I told my friend, plus I can’t expose my children to hazards of falling debris for three weeks.

He said there is another way. It is way cheaper and a helluva lot faster.

“You could just kill off all the cats,” my friend said with a sarcastic grin.

There was an awkward silence because we both realized we were solving my ceiling problem the way Digong Dada would with the drug problem and insurgency in the country.

If you still don’t get it, the ceiling problem is our country’s corrupted institutions, and the cats, well, it’s us, the Filipinos he swore to protect and love.