EDITORIAL - Livelihood opportunity

A nation surprised by the prevalence of the drug menace may not find it surprising that the lack of jobs and livelihood opportunities are among the factors driving the illegal trade.

This could be gleaned from resource persons as the Senate panel headed by Leila de Lima proceeded yesterday with the start of its probe on drug-related killings attributed to police and vigilantes.

Facing senators, several female resource persons confirmed what many people have long suspected in this bloody war on drugs: police themselves were involved in the illegal trade, and were covering their tracks by executing civilians used as assets and drug pushers.

As interesting as this revelation were the reasons cited for peddling drugs. One of the resource persons lost her parents in the drug war; the other lost her partner and his father. Both women admitted that those slain by police sold shabu, but said the drugs came from cops themselves. Those slain acted as assets of the police, the grieving relatives said. The drug war must include a sustained, thorough housecleaning within the Philippine National Police.

And why did those killed engage in the illegal drug trade? Apart from the fact that cops themselves were providing the illegal items, the women said those killed were just eking out a living. The pushers could make from P300 to P400 a day, one of the women said. Not a lot to sustain a family, but it was better than being unemployed.

These stories highlight the need for a multipronged approach to the drug problem, which has social and economic dimensions. There are people who abuse drugs to forget their problems including extreme poverty. Youths try drugs out of boredom, due to peer pressure or because young people tend to want to try everything at least once. You don’t deal with these problems by executing everyone.

Under questioning, one of the resource persons said yesterday her slain relatives would have gladly abandoned the drug trade if they had livelihood alternatives. While poverty and lack of economic opportunities are no excuses for committing crime, the lament of the resource persons cannot be ignored if the war on drugs will have lasting impact.

Just like pursuing peace with armed threat groups, which calls for more than a military approach, enforcing the nation’s drug laws must be complemented by measures to address the factors that drive people to abuse or peddle drugs.