WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THE DRUG PROBLEM?
Despite near daily arrests of pushers, 85% of Cebu villages still drug affected CHR, anti-drug abuse council blast focus of law enforcers on bit players
There has been no letup in President Rodrigo Duterte’s threats to kill drug users and dealers. Yet, near daily news reports of arrests and seizure of drugs in Cebu, sometimes from new players, mean the threats have failed to dampen interest in the illegal trade.
From July 2016 to March 2018, the Philippine National Police (PNP) arrested 13,603 people in anti-illegal drug operations in Cebu, 300 of them minors. Another 229 persons were killed in its anti-illegal drug operations, none of them minors, the Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 said.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 7 and other units arrested another 669 persons from July 2016 to January 2018.
The agency, which collects data on operations by PDEA and other law enforcement units, said 52 of the people arrested in Cebu from July 2016 to January 2018 were government employees, including barangay officials, law enforcers and administrative workers.
Eleven drug personalities were killed in PDEA’s anti-drug operations in Cebu in the same period, which saw law enforcers confiscating some 80,000 grams of methamphetamine hydrochloride, locally known as shabu, with an estimated market value of P400 million.
Going strong
Yet, illegal drugs remain pervasive.
“Of the country’s 81 provinces, Cebu is the 14th most drug affected,” said PDEA 7 Director Emer son Margate.
As of January, 1,024 of the 1,203 barangays in Cebu (including Cebu, Mandaue and LapuLapu cities) remained drug affected, the agency said.
Of the 1,066 barangays covered by the Cebu Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Office (Cpadao), only 23 were unaffected, said Cpadao executive director Carmen Remedios Durano-Meca.
She said 522 barangays were moderately affected, 521 slightly affected, while 160 had been “declared drug-cleared by the Oversight Committee led by the PDEA and also composed of the Department of Health, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) 7, PNP and the representative of the province, which is the Cpadao.”
The Dangerous Drugs Board defines “slightly affected” as having a reported presence of drug user/s, and “moderately affected” as having a reported presence of drug pusher/s and/or user/s.
Assigning blame
Who is to blame for the intractable illegal drug problem?
There are the sellers of drugs, the buyers, and law enforcers who fail to rein in, and at times even participate in, the lucrative trade.
Even if 51 police officers in Central Visayas were subjected to investigation in March 2017 for lavish lifestyles unexplained by their salaries, and even if former and active cops have been nabbed for drug peddling in Cebu in the last two years, the PRO 7 said its Oplan Tokhang did not include visits to the homes of its own policemen.
“When we address the fight against drugs, both demand reduction and supply reduction have to be addressed,” Meca said. “Cpadao is focused on the demand reduction side, which is prevention through education. That’s why we are focused on strengthening the anti-drug abuse councils, implementation of the national programs that will be implemented by DepEd, the social welfare, by the health unit, by the DILG. We believe educating our constituents will lead them away from trying illegal drugs.”
Chicken and egg
It’s been a chicken-and-egg issue for the stakeholders in the fight.
In July 2017, then newly appointed PRO 7 Director Jose Mario Espino sought the help of the Department of Health and Department of Education on demand reduction activities against illegal drugs, saying, “Even if we in the PDEA and PNP vigorously work on supply reduction, if we don’t address the demand, supplying drugs will continue to be a lucrative business.”
The Cpadao’s Meca, however, said law enforcers should intensify their fight against drugs by focusing on the big players to stop the supply of drugs once and for all.
“How can you stop the supply if you’ll get only those street pushers and users? Definitely, if the government goes after the big fish, the supply will stop,” she said.
“Our ports are not even monitoring the ins and outs of this supply. That is where law enforcement units should focus, on drug trafficking. Where do the drugs really come from? Have we determined the presence of any drug lab here in the province? Or is it transported through our ports? When they say the supply is from Bilibid (prison in Muntinlupa City), how did it enter our province?” she asked.
Though Meca acknowledged that law enforcers were working on the problem, as shown by the number of anti-drug operations they had conducted, she said: “Mag-unsa man sila og magsige og operate, nga dili man mahurot ang supply (there will never be an end to their operations for as long as the supply is endcases The big players continue to be in business. That’s why the supply continues to come in,” she said.
Useless killing
Commission on Human Rights (CHR) 7 special investigator Leo Villarino agreed with Meca, saying: “Actually, it’s useless killing all the drug users because drug users come every day. But if you will go to the source of the drugs, if there is no longer the supply, there will no longer be the demand.”
Nationwide, 20,322 people have been killed in the war against drugs, according to the Duterte administration’s yearend report, which said 3,967 drug personalities had been killed in anti-illegal drug operations from July 1, 2016 to Nov. 27, 2017 while 16,355 homicide were under investigation.
The CHR 7 is investigating 100 drug-related alleged extra-judicial killings in Central Visayas committed from July 1, 2016 to March 23, 2018.
“Now, we are seeing a lot of users and small-time pushers arrested or gunned down. There are many more small-time pushers being apprehended than big-time pushers. Granting there are fewer big-time pushers, if they are only few in number, why can’t they be caught?” Villarino asked.
He did not buy the authorities’ explanation that they didn’t know who the suppliers were.
“I don’t believe that,” Villarino said. “That’s failure, or lack of use, of intelligence. Government is providing so much in intelliless). gence funds. So why is our intelligence community able to provide only the names and identities of small-time users and pushers, but not the names of big-time pushers? We have resources to do buy-busts, and secure search warrants and arrest warrants against small-time pushers. But are we seeing day-to-day operations against big-time pushers? We hardly hear of that.”
Not idle
Margate replied that as the lead agency in the implementation of the anti-illegal drugs law, it was “a priority of PDEA, with the support of other law enforcement units, to go after high-value targets and conduct high-impact operations.”
He said that in the first quarter of this year, more than seven kilos of shabu had been confiscated in Central Visayas “and major target-listed drug personalities” had been apprehended.
He said PDEA was also coordinating with the Anti-Money Laundering Council and PDEA’s foreign counterparts for other bigger operations, “such as the financial investigations against suspected drug lords and protectors and the recent dismantling of drug laboratories in Batangas and Malabon.”
Margate said there was no monitored existence of a shabu laboratory in Cebu. Rather, drug personalities were using weak spots in the region to transport illegal drugs.
So PDEA has signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Maritime Industry Authority to deputize the PDEA to inspect domestic and international maritime vessels and public and private ports nationwide.
“A MOA was also signed between PDEA, the Philippine Air Force, Philippine Navy, Philippine Coast Guard, and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources for joint anti-illegal drug operations in Philippine high seas to stop shipside smuggling,” he added.
Margate said PDEA would establish offices with K9 units in key seaports nationwide in addition to existing PDEA offices in the country’s major airports.
It is also augmenting its manpower. As of February, the PDEA 7 had only 55 agents guarding the 3,003 barangays in Central Visayas.