Shaming drug suspects by house signs

If it were a placard hung on the neck of a “salvaged” drug pusher, obviously they wouldn’t worry over whether the note would hurt feelings of the victim’s relatives or offend the grammar police. “I is a drug pusher,” one such placard retrieved from a body dumped on a Manila street said.

The signs that Felicisimo Rupinta, barangay captain of Ermita, Cebu City posted on selected houses in his barangay are not anonymous. Kapitan Imok himself must have made the signs or oversaw the making. He was photographed nailing one on a house door or gate.

Changing signs

From “This house is a drug-free home,” it became “Beware this area is a drug den before.” A clear change of mind: from the absolute clearance that no vice goes on in the house to the tentative judgment that it might be used for vice again, so ingat, beware.

Changing minds is apparently one of Imok’s virtues or faults. Thursday, he publicized his campaign to nail the signs on “cleared” houses; Friday, he said he’d suspend it so as not to violate the law; Saturday, he said he’d go full blast on his “positive” approach.

CA ruling

But “positive” it is not. The Court of Appeals (CA) decided in a Jan. 28, 2000 ruling that it violates provisions of the Constitution on presumption of innocence and due process.

Then Manila mayor Alfredo Lim who thought stickers would discourage drug users to quit even used a city ordinance authorizing his campaign. When Lim briefly led the Department of Interior and Local Government, he tried to push LGUs to use the same strategy. By then the CA already decided it was illegal and the Supreme Court later dismissed Lim’s appeal (on a technicality, Lim said). Last March, President Duterte’s first DILG chief, Mike Sueño, tried Imok’s tack. Like the Ermita barangay chief, Sueño thought it was a positive approach. He dropped the idea though before he left the department over another controversy

Pajo case

Imok should know better. If he hadn’t known about the Lim and Sueño’s attempts, he must have heard or read about Pajo, Lapu-Lapu City Barangay Captain Junard Chan who last September also wanted to use the shaming tactic.

Kapitan Ahong must have been persuaded that the strategy, even with the “drug-free” notice, is constitutionally flawed and illegal. Houses not posted with the “drug-free” sign would be deemed drug-infested and thus would stigmatize everyone in the dwelling, even the children and elderly, and invite raid or invasion from the police or civilian vigilantes.

Motive and will

Mayor Tomas Osmeña has questioned Imok’s motive: why the sudden, high-profile angst against illegal drugs, given his and his barangay councilors’ suspension sometime ago for alleged inaction on the drug problem. Imok isn’t the only late “bloomers.” Many local officials just lately acquired the passion to join the president’s war.

Even Imok’s and Ahong’s limited capacities have the force to stop drug infestation in their barangays. Drug lords and big-time drug merchants are formidable but barangay captains rule their respective turfs. They can summon the help of city officials and the police and PDEA.

Imok talks of “political will.” Make that the strength to rid Ermita of drug activities, not just the strength to hammer shaming signs on houses.

Barangay captains who can’t do their job of keeping their territory drugfree ought to shame themselves, not the people they serve