Pubdate: Fri, 27 Feb 2004
Source: Philippine Star (Philippines)
Copyright: PhilSTAR Daily Inc. 2004
Column: Sketches
Contact:  http://www.philstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/622
Author: Ana Marie Pamintuan

BATTLING DRUG LORDS

The video opens with the song What a Wonderful World. Then it features a 
world that's anything but wonderful: a drug abuser's life in hell. It goes 
on to detail accomplishments in the government's battle against drug 
trafficking and abuse. It concludes with a message that the battle can be 
won only with the cooperation of all concerned sectors.

Police Deputy Director General Edgar Aglipay is showing this video to 
anyone interested, not just to highlight the accomplishments of the 
anti-narcotics task force that he heads, but also to get wider public 
cooperation in the campaign against illegal drugs. He reassured me this 
week that cops aren't just faking raids and issuing press releases about 
the anti-drug campaign.

These days Aglipay goes around accompanied by top officers of the task 
force, armed with a computer for video presentation, wanted posters and 
reams of documents on the war against drug trafficking. The task force is 
trying to get the Church, barangay officials and civic groups on board.

One young officer showed me a favorite line of the task force: "For evil to 
triumph, all it takes is for good men to do nothing."

In this country, it's often hard to tell the good men from the bad, but you 
get the drift.

The video presentation was rather sappy for my taste, but I got the 
message. In my teenage years I lost friends to drugs. There they were 
happily rolling marijuana into fat cigarettes, carefully including the 
seeds, and one day they were dead, from drug overdose or a fall from 
drug-induced stupor.

It's a social problem - one that can't be solved just by regular raids on 
shabu laboratories. What can you do when kids use drugs to cure boredom, 
calm teenage angst or control rampaging hormones?

For those who do want to kick a nasty, expensive habit, the problem is 
compounded by the lack of proper rehabilitation centers. With an estimated 
3.4 million drug abusers nationwide, rehabilitation centers can accommodate 
only up to 30,000. And it takes six months to a year to rehabilitate a drug 
abuser. Aglipay has persuaded Malacanang to set aside P100 million to set 
up additional rehabilitation centers in key areas around the country, but 
he knows it won't be enough.

This is just the demand side. Even if the demand is there, and even if drug 
abusers have the money, what can they do if supply has dried up? This is 
where the cops come in. And this is where you find even bigger problems.

Shabu is big business - so big that the Philippines has started exporting 
the product. If you see packs of what is supposed to be "Kaoshan" tea, it's 
most likely shabu for export. Aglipay said the drug's destinations include 
Australia, China, Guam, Japan and New Zealand.

Raw materials such as ephedrine come from India, which has a large but 
loosely regulated pharmaceutical industry, as well as China where smuggling 
of almost everything is big business. Ephedrine and shabu are topped with 
bleaching powder and transported in drums. Now that this system of shabu 
smuggling has been exposed, the drug traffickers will simply change tack 
once again.

Shabu manufacturing, which used to be a mom and pop operation, is now done 
in this country on an industrial scale, Aglipay said. Giant mixers have 
replaced pots and slotted spoons. Regular refrigerators have been replaced 
with walk-in freezers. And driers with a capacity of 100 kilos have 
replaced electric fans. The manufacturing pro-cess is now computerized.

Aglipay said a kilo of shabu costs only about P20,000 to process, but 
fetches up to P2.5 million in the streets. For that kind of money, there 
are people willing to risk a trip to the lethal injection chamber.

The Philippines has some of the toughest laws against drug trafficking in 
the world. The amended anti-drug law, Republic Act 9165, punishes the sale 
of a mere 200 grams of shabu with life imprisonment or death.

Still, that may seem less threatening than being executed within days or 
weeks of being arrested for drug dealing in China. So Chinese drug 
traffickers come here, setting up what ostensibly are chemical 
manufacturing plants, and rake in billions.

Often they are aided in their enterprise by cops. Aglipay said 250 
policemen, with the highest ranking a senior superintendent, have so far 
been arrested, charged in court or dismissed for drug-related offenses.

Under RA 9165, bungling a drug case is now a criminal offense punishable 
with up to 12 years imprisonment. The offense includes willful omissions on 
the part of a cop that lead to the dismissal of a drug case. "Planting" 
evidence also carries stiff penalties.

Still, those arrests of cops pale against the reported involvement of 
ranking police officers in the multibillion-peso drug trade. Straight cops 
grumble about two officers who were even promoted to star rank recently. 
And there's the lower-ranking officer whose appointment to the Philippine 
Drug Enforcement Agency was reportedly opposed by the US Drug Enforcement 
Agency. The PDEA turned down the officer, but he found a home in another 
anti-narcotics unit.

Aglipay said they need hard evidence to root out such cops. They also need 
evidence against certain politicians rumored or suspected to be in cahoots 
with drug lords. So far no evidence has been found, he said.

He did not say it, but one of the weakest links in the anti-drug campaign 
is the Bureau of Customs. Those drums of ephedrine, classified as a 
prohibited substance, cannot possibly keep coming into the country through 
sheer incompetence at Customs ports. If Customs personnel are willing to 
look the other way for a shipment of frozen chicken being sought by 
government meat inspectors, they are surely willing to look the other way - 
for bigger bucks - for a shipment of what is supposed to be bleaching powder.

Aglipay is proud to announce his task force's accomplishments in just six 
months: over P13 billion worth of shabu and ephedrine seized, 24,405 
suspected drug offenders arrested and 12 transnational drug rings 
neutralized, 16,761 cases filed in court, and 3,955 drug-affected barangays 
cleared.

Those figures could help him win more public cooperation in this campaign. 
Still, the picture is ugly and the challenges are daunting.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake