Smuggled shabu
ALL bluster and fury signifying nothing. This may sum - up the war on drugs may end up. Already, more than 5,000 deaths have been recorded due to the war on drugs. More often than not, the victims of extra-judicial killings are the men in the street, those who have no means to wield a legal defense. In a word, the victims of the drug war have been the poor.
The transfers, or rather, the promotions of former Customs Commissioners Nicanor Faeldon and Isidro Lapena cannot just be excused with "nalusutan lang sila." This dismissive attitude of so grave an issue makes the cornerstone of the Duterte campaign a big joke. Besides, many souls have rested in the afterlife because of the drug campaign. To excuse these commissioners with almost a shrug of the shoulder does not bode well for this administration.
Recall that under Custom Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon's watch, P6.4 billion worth of shabu from China slipped past authorities last May 2017. In defending Faeldon, Duterte is saying that it was Faeldon who tipped him off of the cigarette manufacturer that made billions by using bogus tax stamps seized by customs last year.
That reasoning, to the ordinary student of logic, is clearly non-sequitur. If Faeldon acted differently with regards to the bogus tax stamps, it does not follow that he could not later be involved in corrupt activities. For all you know, he may have acted that way in the bogus tax stamps to endear himself to the president so he cannot be suspect if he engages in bigger anomaly.
Give Nicanor Faeldon the benefit of the doubt as did the president. From the mess that was created in the Bureau of Customs, Faeldon was not sacked as common sense would dictate. He was only transferred to the Bureau of Corrections.
The case of then Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapena is more complicated, to use the jargon of the millennials. He denied vehemently that the four magnetic lifters contained "shabu." try to connect with them using our own means of communication. When we try to do this, we tend to break a barrier between two dimensions which is very dangerous and sinful. We believe that prayer is still the best and only way of communicating with the souls and spirits. Also, our concern should center on how to feed our soul and listen to it in order to live a moral life. It is our soul who faces the savior in the end, and the soul presents everything of us. It better be healthy or we’ll be damned.