Drug syndicates putting PDEA to shame

“Cocaine is God’s way of saying you’re making too much money.” — ROBIN WILLIAMS

By Alex P. Vidal

It appears that the drug syndicates are the ones putting the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) into shame, not the other way around.

PDEA can’t nail down a drug lord. Small fries yes, but not big fishes. Not in this generation where trafficking of prohibited substance has become high level with the aid of technology and gargantuan bribe money.

Tentacles of drug syndicates have reached alarming heights and lengths that they can afford to elect senators and even presidents. It happened in Central America, it can happen in Asia. God forbid.

With or without the much-touted “shame campaign” (or PDEA regional director Paul Ledesma’s threat to reveal the names of village chiefs who give their barangay anti-drug abuse councils or BADACs cold shoulder treatment), drug syndicates have become and bold and unstoppable.

CAPTURED

The drug lords here believe they have captured the metropolis and it’s only a matter of time before they will transform public edifices into dance floors and venues of their bacchanalia. Not even the Philippine National Police (PNP) can send shivers down the spines of these drug lords. If they can’t lick them, join them.

They have sent a strong signal when they were able to not only successfully penetrate the barangays, they also were able to ensure the win of their own village chiefs and councilmen in the most recent barangay elections.
Drug syndicates have become powerful Goliaths that it is almost impossible for PDEA or any state agency for that matter to slay those behemoths with one sling.

MAJORITY

PDEA may have successfully lured majority of the village chiefs to attend the Barangay Drug Clearing Operation Orientation Seminar last February 5 in Iloilo City (only six of the village chiefs in 180 barangays were absent), but shabu and other illegal drugs continue to proliferate in barangays Tanza-Esperanza, Rizal Pala-Pala, Monica, Bakhaw, North Baluarte, Calumpang, Calaparan, San Jose, Desamparados, among other drugs “hot spots” in Iloilo City.

We are only talking here of Iloilo City. We all know that drug syndicates are also very much active in the province and in other cities and provinces in Western Visayas, including Boracay.

Some of those who attended the PDEA seminar backed by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and City Hall, were themselves directly involved if not in cahoots with drug lords in the trafficking of illegal drugs. And Director Ledesma knows who they are.

DEDICATION

Ledesma, with all his sincerity and dedication, is a square peg in a round hole. He may be the bravest and most honest anti-drug czar in the region, but his agency is ill-equipped and under-manned to match the machinery and tactics of drug syndicates. Even children and women sell drugs and it’s not easy to separate the chaffs from the grains in this battlefield.

We fear that instead of producing “hopes of the fatherland” like what Jose Rizal had said, we are producing a generation of drug addicts, walking dead or “zombies”, home wreckers, criminals and potential terrorists.

A drug addict fears no law. Once high on drugs, he is not afraid to commit a crime. He will destroy properties. He will rape women and children. He will terrorize. He will kill. And he doesn’t feel any remorse.