How to win the war on drugs
I hope President Duterte can read this – approaches to a solution, even half way ones.
Step 1 in winning the war on drugs is to stop the supply at the source – China. The confiscation of the recent ‘massive’ smuggling of P6.4 billion worth of shabu is the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of smuggling routes in our archipelago. No one knows how much is coming in. The Philippines is the largest market for China’s shabu empire because we do not have a death penalty. We host big time and small time Chinese drug lords. We have users-pushers from tricycle drivers to mayors and generals.
Cutting the supply chain is not easy but doable with political will. There must first be a bilateral agreement of cooperation in stopping the smuggling at all levels - customs, coastguard, police, army, PDEA, NBI, etc. (existing?) Better if there are secret coordinating intel groups on both sides (existing for Duterte). Caution, the intels may be infiltrated. The Chinese shabu cartel is just like the drug cartels of South America. They are powerful and can bribe almost everyone. The Chinese-Filipino cartel has tentacles in the Chinese and Philippine governments – lawmakers, law enforcers.
Step 2 is to stop the LGUs into drugs. Manila Times says 4 mayors killed, 4 arrested, 52 other’s in Duterte’s list as of July 2017. LGU-managed shabu proliferation is mind-boggling. Power politicians are the biggest culprit. They have the logistics, capital, protection, and manpower. Policemen, drug lords, and generals polarize towards the LGU leadership. When Espinosa and Parojinog were neutralized, the shabu empire in Leyte and Misamis suffered a dramatic setback. Duterte made a dent, but by how much and until when?
Why did the mayors ignore the warnings of Duterte that they may be next? Simple, they cannot resist the huge windfall. It’s greed. They are also confident their large private army, which they could afford, could protect them. Not Espinosa, Parojinog, etal.
Step 3 - Killing small time pushersusers are not making a dent. In fact, we get flak from Amnesty International and the UN. While police are picking off addicts at the squatter level by the hundreds, the drug lords still flood the place with ample supply. As the police sweep the garbage, the drug lords scatter more garbage. Go for the big timers.
Step 4 - Understand the true nature of addiction. A stage 4 shabu addict will die for a high. Stage 5 addiction results in psychosis, as shabu destroys brain cells on a massive scale. It is easy to rape a sister or threaten a mother who refuses to give money. Shabu is directly related to heinous crimes. The schools play a vital role in making the youth aware of the deadly effects of shabu before they do a first-take. We need an extensive intensive shabu education program to nip the potential users at the bud.
Duterte’s monstrous rehab center in Nueva Ecija, mainly financed by China, presently can accommodate about 35,000 with a pessimistic thousand a day of new addicts arriving. It is bursting at the seams. It is bigger than Bilibid by far. It may even follow the footsteps of Bilibid to house secret shabu factories.
It is not a rehab center but a ‘soft jail’. Rehab centers are better run by gentle people like nuns and psyciatrists, rather than by soldiers. And they should be
decentralized, 1,000 rehab centers scattered in different provinces, 10 to 30 addicts per center. The Church should have a big role in parishbased rehab centers. Addicts need to be nursed, loved and treated gently as a solution to addiction, not punished or whipped. There is no such thing as total rehab. A shabu friend knocking at the gate can destroy a whole year of painstaking rehab.
The thing is to 1) stop the supply at the source 2) neutralize the power politicians, 3) go for the bigtimers, and 4) have an extensive education program. That is the best Duterte can do, and only for now. Many factors are complex and unpredictable. We need a devoted effective charismatic well-informed drug czar. Send feedback to eastwindreplyctr@gmail.com By eastwind - Bernie V. Lopez eastwindreplyctr@gmail.com