Pubdate: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 Source: Philippine Star (Philippines) Copyright: PhilSTAR Daily Inc. 2003 Contact: http://www.philstar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/622 Author: Jarius Bondoc Drugs Top Issue In 2004 Election GOTCHA The worsening drug menace will be a major issue in the 2004 local and national elections. Not only will young candidates bring it up in their campaigns, but drug lords also will strive to win elective posts to expand their illicit trade. In all towns, cities and provinces, it will be a fight for political power between narcotraders and narcocrusaders. The confrontation is inevitable. Every family is now affected by the drug scourge. With 1.8 million addicts and 3.5 million occasional users, mostly of shabu, one out of every 16 of the 82 million Filipinos has a drug problem. Homes are being torn apart. Everyday news outlets report how addicts steal heirloom jewels, hurt their kin, or sell their bodies just to sustain the habit. Some would flip and hostage toddlers just for kicks. Conscientious candidates will have to take on the challenge and show a way out of the drug culture. Drug lords surely will oppose them. Every barangay is now also affected. With an estimated 150,000 pushers nationwide, there's bound to be one in each basic political unit. Worst hit is Metro Manila. Going by road signs warning the youth against drug abuse, shabu has reached even far-flung villages like Sagada in Mountain Province and Simunol in Tawi-Tawi. Drugs are the common denominator of disorder and lawlessness in communities. The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency notes that three of every five jail inmates are facing drug charges. Two of every five index crimes - homicide, physical injury, robbery, burglary, theft - are drug-related. Four of every five heinous crimes - murder, rape, kidnapping - arise from drugs. Aspirants for local posts will have to face up to the statistics. Drug pushers will fight back. Retired ambassador Miguel Perez-Rubio, head of Katotohanan that combats narcopolitics, narrates that local drug lords put up candidates in last year's barangay election. Bishops and civic leaders reported to him how known pushers openly campaigned for community seats. No wonder Local Governments Undersecretary Alfredo Fernandez notes that the last barangay campaign was characterized by unbelievably high spending. In drug-torn locales, it reached as high as P500,000 for kagawad and P2 million for kapitan, who would draw allowances of only P6,000 to P10,000 per month. Perez-Rubio analyzes this to mean that syndicates are preparing to grab seats in municipal, city and provincial councils. Also in Congress and most likely Malacanang. Drug syndicates have every reason to influence the election outcome. Narcotrade has grown to a multibillion-peso enterprise from a naughty sideline to jueteng in the '70s. The 11 transnational and 215 local gangs will strive not only to defend but also expand it, in spite of the stiffer fines and prison terms of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. That law punishes with life imprisonment the mere act of selling one-tenth gram of shabu, which comes in P100-sachets. It mandates drug rehabilitation for those caught possessing or testing positive for narcotics. It also imposes maximum prison terms for policemen, prosecutors and judges who would plant or misplace evidence and deliberately lose court cases. With that law the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency was formed. In the first quarter of 2003 alone, PDEA led the PNP and the NBI in 4,498 operations in which P314 million worth of shabu was confiscated, 5,122 persons were arrested, and 3,849 cases were filed. From March to August, it also raided close to a dozen shabu laboratories and warehouses. Due to the enormity of the drug problem, PDEA has hardly made a dent. Interior Secretary Jose Lina estimates narcotrade to command P216-P432 billion per year. This is a big chunk of the $65-billion annual gross from amphetamine stimulants like shabu. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ranks RP the third biggest user of such drugs, next only to Thailand and Australia. Filipinos outrank other countries like Ireland, Japan, Britain, Estonia, Poland, Spain, Nigeria, United States, Denmark, Czech Republic, Belgium, Canada, and Netherlands. Shabu is readily available at school gates, burger joints, factories, cinemas and plazas. In the slums, female pushers use infants as props, with shabu sachets hidden under the diapers. The poor are favorite targets of drug lords. Shabu provides a hallucinative escape from hunger and want. With over 40 percent of the population living below the poverty line, drug lords see a huge market potential. They will capitalize on the same poverty to buy votes and sell their candidates in 2004. Once they win, they will be able to distribute shabu more openly than the small-town but big-time mayor from Quezon. They will be able to control other institutions of society, like the police and military, the press, even the church. It has often been said that the Philippines is going the route of Equador and Colombia in allowing the rise of narcoterrorism. Truth to tell, those two countries have elected narcopoliticians to the Presidency, and Filipinos could do the same in 2004. There is a big difference between RP and the Latin American countries, however. Colombia and Equador export cocaine for foreign exchange. The Philippines makes and uses shabu. Thus, while Filipinos squander P216-P432 billion a year on drugs, the government also spends billions to train lawmen and judicial officers in combatting drugs, to jail pushers and cure users. Election candidates will have to take stock of those figures in the coming campaign. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman