Drug war

During the presidentiables’ debate on March 20, 2016 in Cebu, Mayor Duterte answered the question of drug raids in Davao: In Malabon the suspects are just arrested while in Davao they are killed. The Freeman of March 21, 2016 in its leading article Sparks fly at debate: “The audience cheered.”

When President Duterte started his war on illegal drugs on July 1, 2016 he took over a completely incapacitated administration. The Bureau of Customs just passing containers to the green line for a bribe, the Department of the Interior and Local Government with plenty of corrupt narco politicians in cities and barangays, a judiciary completely undermanned and overtaxed, unable to produce justice and unwilling to reform, a grossly under-paid police force with scalawags on the pay list of drug lords, prisons run by convicted criminals living in luxurious ‘kubols’ and running drug factories within the prison premises, and about 4 million drug users.

Considering these adverse givens inherited from his predecessors it is not astonishing that President Duterte could not fulfill his promise to eradicate the drug scourge within a short time. But at least he is trying to do what no president before him ever tried.

A hot war it has become because the drug lords maintain private armies. In order to catch them and bring them to justice a shooting war is unavoidable. At least two of them have been caught or killed: Parojinog and Espinosa. In order to catch the Mautes and Abus. Duterte had first to kill their Islamic terrorist allies. An entire city had to be destroyed in a half-year full-blown war. Had Duterte not taken up the challenge, Mindanao would a caliphate today expanding with ‘fire and sword’ and shabu to Bohol, Cebu, and Leyte. None of the other aspirants, not Roxas, not Binay, or Poe has the farsightedness and will power to decide the necessary.

Almost impossible is to fight the Chinese importers of tons of drugs worth billions. The Chinese Communist Party wants to incapacitate the Philippine people by doping them just as the European colonizers rendered the Chinese people opium-addicts.

Of course, Xi Jinping declines such reproach. But he is in control of every move in China with his perfected surveillance system. Only his state-owned firms can produce such quantities of drugs and only the CCP can transport and ship them abroad. If Xi wanted to he could stop manufacture and trade immediately.

Filipinos will win the drug war as long as they support the president further overwhelmingly. They must refuse to accept money when they go to the polls in May 2022. They must know that vote buying is financed by their foes who want to stop the drug war. A drug-crazed citizenry will fall easy prey to power-hungry communists. If President Duterte cannot save this nation from the drug scourge surely his successor will.

Erich Wannemacher

Lapu-Lapu City