Nothing can stop them despite the pandemic

By Alex P. Vidal

 

“I believe that the war on drugs is a tragically misplaced use of resources-an immoral venture that produces far more suffering than it alleviates.”—David Harsanyi

 

BASED on the volume of illegal drugs, particularly shabu, confiscated by the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the number of personalities arrested most recently, it seems Western Visayas has now become a narco region.

A narco-state or narco-economy is a state whose economy is dependent on the trade in illegal drugs.

We haven’t reached this level in the Philippines hopefully, but we fear the evolution of a “narco region” once all the main tentacles of drug syndicates will not be cut off immediately.

Sadly no big fish has been added in the list in Western Visayas’ campaign against illegal drugs ever since the killings of Boyet “Dragon” Odicta and Richard “Buang” Prevendido.

Just when we thought trafficking of illegal drugs will suffer a decline because of the pandemic, statistics based on what has been reported in the media these past months, indicated that there were still rampant transactions involving illegal drugs worth millions of pesos.

The perpetrators didn’t fear President Duterte; they didn’t fear the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

 

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As if the fears of many people aren’t enough, there have been simultaneous buy-bust operations in Negros and Iloilo, and many of those apprehended were former members of law enforcement or PNP personnel who have gone AWOL (absent without official leave).

It would be extremely difficult for lawmen to solve the problems on illegal drugs if some cops or former cops were involved.

This will make the campaign of the government against illegal drugs become nil if not impossible as the syndicates will not only have protection from corrupt authorities but are also controlled and managed by some of those who are sworn to eradicate the illegal drugs.

If these illegal transactions have been going on unabated even before the COVID-19 pandemic, we suspect that the Duterte administration will go in 2022 without totally stamping out the illegal drug trade from the system of the Filipinos contrary to the administration’s pre-election campaign battlecry.

 

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THERE are two types of voters in the November 3 Presidential Election  in the Filipino-American community here in the United States: the “Angry and Loud Filipinos (ALF)” and the “Calm and Silent Filipinos (CSF).”

ALF members are those who can’t hide their disappointment that in many major polls, Democratic Party’s Joseph Biden is way ahead of reelectionist President Donald Trump.

ALF members are Trump die-hards; they hate the policies of the Democrats and most of them were married to white Americans.

When they criticize the Democrats in public, they call the political party as “demon-crats” and sneer at 77-year-old Biden for being a “Jurassic” or already “past his prime” as a politician.

ALF members also hit Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris as “a mistress (of a former mayor in California) and therefore a bad choice.”

ALF members also believe that “it is not necessary to wear a face mask in public because the coronavirus is a hoax and President Trump is correct; we trust our president.”

A 68-year old woman rabid ALF, who grew up in Digos in Mindanao, and a dyed-in-the-wool believer of Conspiracy Theory, has been calling fellow Filipinos to “vote for Trump because it was (former President Barrack) Obama who brought the coronavirus in America, and they intend to make us all as fertilizers when we die.”

 

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Members of the CSF, on the other hand, don’t usually criticize Mr. Trump in public.

Most of them aren’t married to white husbands or wives.

They acquired citizenship through other legal means, not by marrying white Americans.

“That’s why we still have a heart for immigrants and those who intend to come to America in the future,” explained one CSF member, a 57-year-old nursing assistant.

CSF members believe that if Biden and Harris will win, “the gates of more opportunities will open for Filipinos and other Asians who will pursue their American dreams in the United States.”

The dreams, CSF members said, will be stymied “if President Trump and the Republicans will win on November 3.”

CSF members agree that Mr. Trump “didn’t take the coronavirus seriously” blaming him for the rise of the COVID-19 casualties in the United States which have breached 200,000.

 

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)