WHEN policemen arrived to arrest suspected drugpusher Rigor Abala in Barangay Pasil, Cebu City recently, more than a hundred neighbors blocked their way.

The police succeeded in arresting Abala only after the arrival of reinforcements from the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team which effectively cordoned off the mob.

This is not the first time that a suspected drugpusher was protected by his neighbors by way of a perverted form of people power in this urban poor barangay.

And this is not the only urban poor barangay in the Philippines where suspected criminal elements have been protected by the neighborhood against the police. Scenes like these have taken place in many depressed barangays in Metro Manila, and in many other urban centers in the country where lawlessness seems to have become a prevalent way of life.

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