The cart before the horse

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THEY promised to “hit the ground running,” so in their rush to make an impression they took the plunge without first using their heads.

They started killing crime suspects without trial. Today more than 7,000 warm bodies have become cold statistics in the new administration’s so-called “war” on drugs.

Recently they started building rehabilitation facilities. And the latest news tells us they will now put the “war” on hold while they cleanse the police ranks of rotten apples.

They should have done it the other way around: First, purge the police ranks of bad cops. Second, re-train everybody else. Third (or at the same time), build rehab facilities.

But what they did was kill, kill. kill first. Then build one or two rehab buildings. Then, get rid of crooked cops. If that’s not putting the cart before the horse, it’s hard to imagine what is.

In their rush to make an impression, they cursed and ranted, railing against the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union. Before that, Pope Francis got hit with a now familiar curse.

Then undisguised overtures to China and Russia were made. Badly needing allies, China was just too willing to welcome the suitor into her bosom. Russia, too, was happy to find an unexpected friend. Together they would go “against the world,” whatever that meant.

For a few weeks, it was all China and Russia, from where gargantuan amounts of aid and trade will supposedly come. Arms, too, will no longer be sold to us by America because Russia is more than willing to provide them.

Wouldn’t the sequence be more logical if they didn’t alienate the US, the UN, and the EU by cursing at them while they carried on their courtship of China and Russia (if they’re really their preferred new allies)? Why go on a cursing rampage in the first place? Where’s the need for that?

Then, while the US and EU are quietly on hold, serious talks could have been held with China and Russia (instead of just the state visits and summits) to thresh out the nitty-gritty of a long-term relationship. That would have been the more sober and more effective way of forging relations with new allies.

But, in their rush to make an impression to the public (because they had promised change), they did things in the wrong order, as in putting the cart before the horse.

Haste makes waste, the expression goes. Today 7,000 fellow Filipinos are dead, casualties of a brutal and mindless “war” on Filipinos. Again, it’s the wrong way of doing things. Instead of going on a mad killing spree, making fellow Filipinos victims of an unwinnable war, what they should have done was to find ways of interdicting the supply of drugs.

To stop a plague you don’t kill those affected by the plague, you kill the plague. Stop the drugs from entering the country, there will be no users, no peddlers, no drug habit, no addiction. Cut off the supply, arrest and jail the drug smugglers if you can, that’s the way to win a war on drugs. Killing your own people is not only immoral and illegal, it’s also the wrong way of stopping an epidemic of drug use.

To kill, kill, kill is to admit that you can’t do it the legal way. To kill, kill, kill, is to say that your police aren’t up to the job of eliminating drugs. To kill, kill, kill, is just plain being lazy, preferring shortcuts over due process.

And now the announcement was made in an unholy hour last Sunday that instead of six months and another six-month extension, the “war” on drugs will continue until the end of a six-year term.

In their rush to make an impression, they plunged into an enterprise of supposedly ridding society of crime, corruption, and drugs without first having a viable plan. All they had was a false sense of machismo. They should have used their brains before they went all out with brawn. There’s a difference between using one’s head and being headstrong.