Dispassionate probe

One thing is clear: the New Bilibid Prison was turned into a command center for large-scale drug trafficking and other crimes. As portrayed in investigations conducted by Congress and the Department of Justice, the illegal activities peaked in the previous administration, when Leila de Lima headed the DOJ, which has jurisdiction over the NBP.

Less clear is whether De Lima, now a senator, protected some of the NBP drug dealers so she could raise funds for her election campaign, or at least looked the other way in the face of the criminal activities. Certain inmates have implicated in drug payoffs several former officials of the DOJ and Bureau of Corrections as well as De Lima’s former driver and lover, who in turn has implicated her.

In their defense, some of the former officials who now face criminal charges have pointed to drug raids conducted at the national penitentiary under De Lima’s watch. Even those raids, however, continue to be hounded by controversy. A persistent rumor is that the cash seized from at least two of the drug dealers during one major raid totaled nearly P100 million, but only less than P2 million was declared by the raiders.

The issue has been complicated by President Duterte’s open dislike for De Lima, a staunch critic of his human rights record, and the senator’s verbal skirmishes with her successor in the DOJ, Vitaliano Aguirre Jr. Personal animosities are clouding the challenging task of unearthing the truth in this case.

It’s valid to argue that prisoners of the state cannot be expected to provide truthful testimony against someone that the President is known to detest. On the other hand, who else but the drug dealers themselves can testify about their coddlers in government? Even in the US, government prosecutors have utilized gangsters, sometimes as hostile witnesses, to pin down Mafiosi bosses for murders and organized criminal activities.

Directing drug trafficking from the NBP is a heinous offense that must be stopped. This requires identifying all the players and establishing their roles in the criminal operation. The truth is best unearthed dispassionately, without personal hostilities getting in the way.