Pubdate: Wed, 17 Aug 2016 Source: Philippine Star (Philippines) Column: Gotcha Copyright: PhilSTAR Daily Inc. 2016 Contact: http://www.philstar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/622 Author: Jarius Bondoc VIGILANTE EXECUTIONS SMEAR THE DRUG WAR Unstopped, the silencing of surrendered pusher-addicts could worsen to vendetta against anti-narcotics operatives. Vigilante killers are riding on, thus smearing Rody Duterte's war on drugs. They began striking, seemingly random, days after his May presidential win and worsened to almost daily after his June inaugural. The victims mostly were street pushers or addicted petty criminals from the slums. Duterte theorized a motive even then. Narco-financiers, including politicos and cops, were silencing their own street pushers in anticipation of his crackdown. Very plausible, for the narco-trade has infested high office and society. The past administration not only had let the problem fester; the ruling party notoriously even had as treasurers a sequence of drug lords from Southern Tagalog. Dissociating his drug campaign from the vigilantes, Duterte has ordered them caught. But PNP field units have been unable to comply. The Directorate for Detection and Investigation Management reported last week zero crime solution. The stats included ironically the killing of one of their own. The officer had been tied to a lamppost, shot several times, and slung with a cardboard sign accusing him to be a narco-cop. Zero solution has been ailing the PNP for years. Undermanned, illequipped, and poorly trained, it has been overtaken by a crime wave. Street assassinations have plagued urban centers to the point of earning a moniker, "R- I- T," or riding in tandem. The modus is for two assassins to attack and flee with ease on a motorcycle. From the start, criminologists had suggested countermeasures, like establishing where the gunmen came from, their time and place of operation, and ballistics matches. No go. Left unchecked, the killings soon became ordinary fare. Even slight infractions became motive to hire a gunman, for as low as P3,000 a hit. Now the R- I- T has given way to vigilante executions. It is convenient for supposed vigilantes to pretend to be anti-drug. Genuine police operations can end up bloody. Coinciding with 7,300 arrests from raids and buy-busts since July were 612 killings of armed suspects supposedly fighting back. About 300 vigilante murders also have occurred. News media report both body counts, often lumped together. An impression is created that the vigilante killings complement the official police actions. Laymen do not understand that an Internal Affairs Service of the Dept. of Interior and Local Governments automatically must review every killing or wounding in police operations. The aim is to determine legitimacy and procedural correctness - to prevent abuse. Shootings involving off-duty cops are deemed as index crimes, investigated by the local police SOCO, scene-of-crime officer. The unsolved killings are beginning to take their toll on Duterte's anti-drug drive. Because taken with his hyperbolic "shoot-on-sight" rants against narco-traffickers, confusion ensues. Blaming him for the vigilante killings, critics are talking of charges before the UN for crimes against humanity. Sadly most tarnished are the very accomplishments of the drug war. To date an unprecedented 576,176 pusher-addicts have surrendered to police and barangay stations. Street crime incidence has halved nationwide. It only goes to show, PNP chief said, that fighting drugs stops addicts from robbing to sustain their vice and harming citizens in fits of hallucination. Criminologists noted since the early 2000s that two in five street crimes, and three in five detainees were drug related. Only now is there a way out of the drug menace. But the vigilantes are muddying it. A number of victims were the very pusher- addicts who have surrendered. The drug war so far is focused on the narco-trade network. After dismantling the distribution, Duterte will need to plug the entry points, and rehab the estimated 3.7 million addicts. The vigilante killings, if unsolved, would escalate to distract his focus. This week an anti-narcotics policeman in Cebu went missing from his post, and was found dead in a firing range. He is said to have been among those who exposed the drug links of two generals, yet was left unprotected. Reportedly he had told superiors about death threats from a separate police unit. Were those the vigilantes posing as anti-drug but now out not just to silence but also for vendetta? - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom