Drug ladies, anyone?

The Badian police chief said that it has become a joke in Badian that it is better to be jailed in Bilibid because one can get rich

Three things stand out in the news on the recent arrest of a drug suspect in Badian town: the alleged big-time dealer is a woman, she is a barangay captain, and her husband is serving jail sentence at the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa.

The top levels in the illegal drugs trade have traditionally been a men’s enclave. So if the police description of Epifania Alvizo as a big-time drug is accurate (it must be stated that she is still presumed innocent unless proven otherwise), we have reason to be alarmed because it means that the base of drug dealers has expanded. Alviso may not be in the category of Jaguar yet but with gender barriers in the criminal industry seemingly effectively demolished, that may not take long in coming.

That she also happens to be her village’s chief makes it even more worrisome. Of course, we have heard about narco-politicians but we thought that their ranks have diminished, if not disappeared, after President Duterte started running after them hammer and tongs.

Does her case prove the wisdom and necessity in appointing, instead of electing, barangay officials as proposed by Duterte? I don’t believe so. Who will vet the appointees? The country had 42,036 barangays as of August 2015, according to the Commission on Elections. Can you imagine how little time, if at all , will Duterte have left to attend to other and more important matters of governance after going through the resume of all applicants for barangay captains?

So he will have to delegate the job to the DILG, who will delegate it to the governors, and the congressmen and the senators, who will in turn delegate it to the mayors. These were the same officials who chose the candidates for barangay officials. Do you think they did not know about the peculiar “habits” of their nominees or what happened to them afterwards?

The biggest argument, however, is that appointing barangay officials is undemocratic. The elections are the closest thing to actual participation in governance that the ordinary Juan dela Cruzes have. Let’s not take it away from them. Besides, if we can’t trust them to elect the right, or in a narrower sense, the drugs-free, barangay leaders, how could we trust them to choose the higher, including national officials?

Back to Alvizo, the police and PDEA see a connection between her alleged illicit trade and her husband’s incarceration in the Bilibid prisons. The town police chief even revealed that it has become a joke in Badian that it is better to be jailed in Bilibid because one can get rich.

The implication is that Alvizo’s stash came from the Bilibid, the same prison that was the at the center of a congressional investigation not very long ago during which convicts confessed to their roles in the trafficking of illegal drugs and implicated Sen. Leila de Lima.

De Lima is in jail and the allegedly corrupt prison guards have been replaced with Special Action Forces troopers but the Bilibid continues to be the nerve center of the commerce in illegal drugs in the country? Amazing!