Ruinous atmosphere

It is really hard to ignore the pervasive atmosphere in our country now. It is filled with air of doubts and suspicions of graft and corruption in several government offices and agencies.

Most notable here is of course the recent discovery of P6.4 billion worth of shabu smuggled into the country from China. How such a huge amount of dangerous drugs slipped through the Bureau of Customs (BOC) is indeed quite shocking and highly suspicious especially considering that this administration is now in the midst of serious “wars” against corruption in government and against the trafficking, sale and distribution of dangerous drugs in the country.

People are indeed wondering out loud how this could happen without connivance of some government officials especially in the BOC. More perplexing in this regard is the seeming indifference and lackadaisical reaction of the BOC Chief Nicanor Faeldon. Under the basic principle of “command responsibility” and sense of “delicadeza,” he should have resigned right away like some of his subordinates who were his colleagues in the “Magdalo” faction of the military that staged a coup against the past administration of Arroyo precisely because of unabated graft and corruption at that time.

Most perplexing here is that PRRD himself even asked Faeldon to stay put in his post apparently because he still has trust and confidence in the BOC Chief. Granting that the BOC Commissioner is really “clean” and is not in any way involved in the anomaly, PRRD should still have fired him or should have asked him to resign as he did previously in the case of Peter Lavina the erstwhile head of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) who is obviously closer to him and has actively helped in his campaign. People are thus speculating and entertaining lots of suspicions about PRRD’s stance in this anomaly especially because he is supposed to be at the forefront of this fight against graft and corruption in the government.

More doubts and ugly speculations arose because PRRD’s son and Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte has been implicated in the anomaly. PRRD’s reaction in this connection did not clear the air but even muddled the situation. He arrogantly threatened to resign as President if it can be shown even in an affidavit that his son is really involved. Lots of people see his reaction as an attempt to defend Paolo. Of course this is the natural reaction of any father. But in this case he is not only a father of a family but the President of the country. Hence it would have been more proper and laudable if he ordered a thorough probe of his son’s alleged involvement to erase all speculations currently circulating about his son’s role in this shady transaction. This is the only way to clear the air of any doubts on whether or not his son is involved in this multi-billion peso anomaly.

There is also an atmosphere of murderous and lethal violence prevailing in our country now. This is clearly due to the rising incidence of killings of suspected drug addicts, users and pushers mostly those living in the slum areas of the metropolis and in the provinces. The latest report in this regard is the record killings of 32 suspected drug users and addicts in the province of Bulacan within just one day of police operation followed by 24 more killings in Manila the next day.  As of now, there are already 3,264 victims of these police operations in the entire country, plus around 2,000 more liquidations perpetrated by unknown people riding in tandem on motorcycles.

Unfortunately, PRRD even welcomed these record killings in one day. He publicly endorsed them and said “Maganda yun. Patay pa tayo ng another 32 every day, maybe we can reduce what ails this country.” This kind of reaction from the President of the country is really quite alarming and worrisome. PRRD already assumed that these suspects are guilty of violating our Anti Drug Law even if they have not yet been tried and convicted by our courts. The usual justification here is that the suspects “ay nanlaban” while being arrested. But so far, no report has been made by the police operatives about this “nanlaban” justification.

Under our law, such killings are justified only if it can be shown that the drug suspects being arrested unlawfully attacked the arresting officers in such a way as to endanger their lives, thus forcing them to use reasonable means to repel the aggression. Almost all the killings occurring in these operations however show that the suspects are unarmed and they were shot while fleeing. Under these circumstances it is unlawful for the police to shoot and kill them instead of just disabling them so that they can be arrested.

This atmosphere of lethal violence prevailing in our country has apparently emboldened the IS backed Maute terrorist group to launch an attack and occupy parts of Marawi City in Mindanao. Our armed forces already have intelligence reports of the ISIS backed terrorists’ plan to invade and occupy parts of Mindanao even five months earlier. Hence they could have immediately moved to foil this plan. Yet the Maute band was still able to launch their invasion and insurrection in Marawi City. That led to the declaration of Martial Law in the whole Mindanao region. The circumstances under which such siege happened led people to believe that it was purposely allowed in order to lay the ground-works for declaration of martial law. And the more unfortunate aspect here is that the government may have miscalculated the capability of the group because up to now the military has not yet suppressed the rebellion despite the lapse of more than two months.

It is therefore time for PRRD to clear this muddled atmosphere of unbridled corruption, violent killings and destructive terrorism now prevailing and tending to ruin our country before it is too late.

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