Shame

Last we looked, due process and the presumption of innocence were still guaranteed under Article 3 of the 1987 Constitution. But politicians and police officials, buoyed by the apparent popularity of a controversial campaign to shame drug pushers by spray-painting their houses, are now falling all over themselves to adopt similar shame campaigns. Who cares about the Bill of Rights?

In Marikina, local officials are planning to set up their version of the Warsaw Ghetto -- that area in war-time Poland where the Nazis confined Jews and other creatures deemed by Adolf Hitler to be unfit for decent living. A report said Marikina Mayor Bayani Fernando has approved a city ordinance that will isolate a community found to be a haven of drug pushers. Ordinance 245 will allow the city to put up a placard identifying the "drug risk area" -- never mind if it damns everyone, including children and innocent residents -- and to regulate the influx of people, especially strangers, into the community.

Over at Camp Crame, a police official wants regional commanders to encourage local executives in their respective jurisdictions to pass ordinances similar to the one in Manila that allowed that spray-painting campaign. What would police chief Panfilo Lacson have done if, in his low days when he was not yet being pictured as presidential material, someone had spray-painted his family's home, accusing him of being a murderer and human rights violator?

This shame campaign, championed by Interior Secretary Alfredo Lim, is not new; he did it when he was mayor of Manila, with dubious results. It was questioned then, and it is being questioned now. Not just by those who wonder if the Bill of Rights still exists, but by people who wonder if it wouldn't be better to spray-paint the homes of corrupt government officials, crooked cops and other social riffraff who have the good fortune not to live in the slums.

If you're spray-painting the home of a convict, he most likely doesn't live there anymore, since he would be doing time in prison. If he lives there, it can mean three things: the case is still being tried, so he's not yet convicted; he's on the run and must be arrested; or he has served his sentence and can be meted additional punishment only by the courts. The shame campaign then shames only the other residents of the household, who surely go through enough hell with a drug pusher in their midst.

Lim deserves encouragement in his anti-drug campaign, and his initial spray-painting may have achieved his desired shock effect. But there are no short cuts in solving this complex problem. Local government and police officials will serve the people better the old-fashioned way -- by getting the drug lords and confiscating the drugs.