Have we truly become a full-blown narco state?

OR is this not a rhetorical question? There are not too many narco states in the world, and there isn’t one to be envied by others. A short list begins with Afghanistan, which produces 90 percent of the world’s opium. Followed by Burma ( Myanmar), whose opium king used to control three-fourths of the world’s

million people are addicted, and China, whose avowed benevolence to provide inexhaustible supply. unshod drug pusher or user, the bigtime illegal drugs business goes on at the very heart of the nation, unmindful of the corpses piling up in the ghettos and the slums.

The war on drugs

in 2016 by warning against the possibility of the Philippines becoming a narco state, if he did not launch his war on drugs. So, he launched his brutal war. war, though not the killings and kill, kill.” On July 7, 2016, one week after he assumed office, he named the country’s supposedly three biggest drug lords, said to be members of the Chinese triad, and allegedly protected by a powerful police general.

Tan, also known as “Tatay Co,” Peter Lim aka “Tiger Balm,” and to be operating from inside the New Bilibid Prison—all allegedly - tor General Marcelo Garbo Jr., who vehemently denied the accusation.

- ing names of individuals allegedly the Philippine National Police “Bato” de la Rosa and masked “vigilantes” on all suspected pushers and users. And he denounced as “sons of bitches” then- US President Barack Obama, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Ambassador Philip Goldberg, unnamed leaders of the European Union, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights Agnes Callamard, and others for criticizing the “extra-judicial killings” which had his presidency.

- ish the bloodletting, for which the policemen and “vigilantes” were reportedly given “kill quotas” and reward money for every suspect killed. Within one year, the war was reported to have killed some 8,000 suspects, without documentation or due process, raising an international human rights storm, which includes an accusation of “crimes against humanity” before the International Criminal denunciations from the US State Union, among others.

No big haul of illegal drugs, no busting of any sizeable drug laboratories, no arrest of any bigtime drug lords were ever reported. Most of the victims belonged to the class of “social rejects” whose births, in Eliot’s words, “are unwelcome,” whose death is “unmentioned in the

So far only three notable suspects had been killed in the most bizarre circumstances.

Some mentionables

On November 5, 2016, Mayor Rolando Espinosa of Albuera, Leyte, who had earlier turned himself in after having been tagged as a drug suspect, was killed at four o’clock in the morning inside his detention cell at the Baybay, Leyte subprovincial jail by a police strike team that had motored for hours from Tacloban, allegedly to serve him a search warrant. The National Bureau of Investigation saw this as a plain “rubout,” but the raiding party said it was a “shootout”, and Superintendent Marvin Marcos, the leader of the raiding party, will now be promoted to the next higher rank.

On January 19, 2017, it became publicly known that sometime in October some rogue policemen abducted Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo, an alleged drug suspect, for a P5 million ransom, drove him to the PNP compound at Camp Crame, where he was strangled to death inside his car.

This raised a strong statement from the South Korean government, but the sensation quickly died down.

On July 30, 2017, a Sunday, Ozamiz City mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr., his wife and 13 others, mostly relatives and friends, were massacred inside their three residences at 2.30 a. m. on the suspicion of their alleged drug dealing. The raiding party claimed inside the residences under siege, a claim denied by the lawyer of the slain mayor. Reports from the city have since claimed that the raiding party included hired gunmen from Isabel, Leyte, hiding behind masks.

The drug war was temporarily terror group, which attacked the Islamic city of Marawi on May 23, - tial law and suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus for 90 days in the whole of Mindanao. The constitutionality of Proclamation 216, issued in Moscow where challenged before the Supreme its expiration on Juy22, Congress extended the proclamation until

Back to the drug war

With the successful military operations against the Mautes in Marawi, and the apparent collapse of the IS structure in Syria and Iraq, the war of drugs shot back to prominence upon the discovery of a P6.4 billion illegal drug shipment from Xiamen, which had gone the gravity of the case, for which Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon should be held directly full confidence in the former Philippine Marines captain, who had participated in the military mutiny against then- President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2003. Now Chairman Robert on dangerous drugs, a Mindanao fire Faeldon for corruption and incompetence.

blithely ignore. Analysts close to this issue, however, believe Faeldon may be in possession of certain sensitive information, which makes it unless he volunteers to step down. Amid the apparent efforts of some dangerous drugs shipment from Xiamen, Faeldon has not said one word clearing him of any suspicion. If Faeldon knows Paolo is not at all involved in any monkey business at the pier, shouldn’t he have come to his defense after the customs broker Mark Taguba mentioned his name, quoting wild rumors, in a congres

Who is this Kenneth Dong?

The problem is, a photo has surfaced in the social media showing Paolo in a friendly alleged middleman in the illegal P6.4 billion drug shipment. And some people are giving undue importance to it. No one is saying the young man has any fascination for any narco king—whether it be Burma’s late opium king Khun Sa, or Colombia’s Pablo Escobar, or Mexico’s Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. But by linking him of his narco chain, his enemies clearly want to show his guilt by association.

has had to deal with various problems. This is one problem he probably never expected to deal with though. This is why he says if anyone could show him implicating his son in any shady deal, he would quit the presidency. This statement is understandable, but I hope it does not come to that. Still, until a much bigger problem biggest problem for now.