Bigger fish
The Philippine National Police and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) seem to be training their sights higher up the ladder of the illegal drug trade.
Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr., who died in Sunday’s pre-dawn raids in Ozamiz City, is the third mayor in nine months to fall as a result of President Rodrigo Duterte’s all-out offensive against drugs. Whether Parojinog was guilty or not, we may never find out. The same goes for Datu Saudi Ampatuan Mayor Samsudin Dimaukom and Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr.
But the fact that even mayors have become targets of the anti-drug campaign is significant. The more cynical among us would say that local elective office has, for some individuals and for a long time now, become a competition for control over lucrative illegal trades. While citizens cheered the arrest of street-level pushers and the surrender of hundreds of thousands of drug users, one question that kept coming up was: What about big-time traders of illegal drugs? What about alleged drug traders who hold positions in government? Can we expect government operatives to go after them as intensely as they have pursued pushers and runners?
Malacañang’s order is clear. One of the functions of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-illegal Drugs, which Executive Order 15 created last March, is “to cleanse the bureaucracy of unscrupulous personnel involved in illegal drug activities.”
This does not mean that any anti-drug operation by the PNP and PDEA should be considered beyond scrutiny, just because they happen to be against high-profile personalities—and public officials, no less. Government agencies should still be examined for what Human Rights Watch has described as “a pattern of unlawful police conduct” in anti-drug operations. Since March, the organization, among others, has appealed to the United Nations to create “an independent, international investigation into the killings” to ensure that all these institutions are kept accountable.
Leaders need not wait for such an investigation to begin. A greater emphasis on (and more results against) alleged drug players in public office shows that the campaign can be calibrated, as required. A greater emphasis on accountability—on the willingness of the police and PDEA to publicly examine their conduct and methods—will rally the additional support this campaign needs.