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?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom