Fight vs drugs can only lose

The latest text joke is that Erap was right after all in saying the judiciary is dead. Proof: Pinadalhan na ni GMA ang Korte Suprema ng Corona.

Not funny? Well, it’s not funny either that a Pasig City judge released on bail five Chinese chemists who were arrested in a police raid of a shabu factory. Six kilos of shabu were taken from the factory, along with a dozen drums of chemicals used to process methamphetamine hydrochloride. The law states that possession of at least 200 grams of shabu constitutes drug trafficking, a nonbailable heinous crime. Due to an alarming rise in the number of pushers to about half-a-million, Congress will soon lower the limit to a mere 19 grams. Granting bail to the shabu chemists makes one ask if justice is dead alright.

Operatives from the PNP-Narcotics Group don’t think so. But they suspect justice is for sale just the same. They want the justice department to look into reports that P12 million changed hands for the release of the suspects. That may be hard to prove. Narc agents know only too well that drug cases can be fixed using legal technicalities. It’s as easy as getting policemen transferred to faraway posts so they can’t testify in hearings, or prosecutors to alter the volume of evidence to reduce the charge to mere drug addiction, or judges to cite noble rulings on human rights, or jail wardens to let suspects escape. Usually it’s a collusion of all four "pillars" of the justice system.

But in the Pasig case the police feel aggrieved. They’re following up leads that the November raid in Barrio Capitolyo led to the vendetta killing of their agent, David Sy-Lato, in Binondo, Manila, in January.

Judge Rodrigo Lorenzo used the very words of the police report on the raid to justify his grant of bail. When the narcs barged into the shabu lab, they found the five Chinese nationals sitting there. With that, Lorenzo cited a Supreme Court ruling that "merely standing on or sitting in an alleged scene of the crime is not unlawful."

Of course it’s not, says one of the officers who directed the raid, but who else could have been cooking the six kilos of shabu and preparing the drums of chemicals for processing? Besides, the five suspects admitted during tactical interrogation that they indeed were shabu chemists from Fujian province.

But Lorenzo had required confirmation of the confession. Police chemist Insp. Vivian Sumabay failed to heed summonses for her to appear in court. Sumabay could only scratch her head when told about her alleged lapses; she hadn’t received a single summons at her office. Meanwhile, City Prosecutor Conrado Tolentino reportedly did not oppose the bail petition. So off went the five: Chua Chiy Li, 37; Huang Hongwei, 34; Xingfu Wang, 31; Tomas Lu, 34; and Joey Lu, 25. Bail was set at P500,000 each. They paid P700,000 and were set free Tuesday night.

The narcs were not about to cry uncle. They ran to the immigration bureau for new arrest warrants, this time for "overstaying aliens," likewise a nonbailable offense. Upon spotting four of the five in court Thursday, the narcs rearrested them. But they’re wondering if the cat-and-mouse game is truly over.

It’s not, according to anticrime crusaders. The narcs may have put Lorenzo on the defensive for now to explain if it’s true that he’s about to seek expensive medical treatment in the US. But inside PNP headquarters itself, high-ranking officers exposed in recent Senate hearings to be involved in narcotrafficking are still holding sensitive posts. The PNP brass had promised a swift investigation of the officers. Yet they also hooted down the witnesses for "tarnishing the image of the PNP," something the latter never intended when they testified that narcotrade goes on within Camp Crame walls. The witnesses are correct in retorting that it’s the brass that’s giving the service a bad name by stalling the investigation. Wasn’t the PNP rated in the latest surveys as the most rotten agency of government?

Meanwhile, thousands of cases pend on prosecutors’ desks and judges’ salas, waiting to be fixed perhaps. If neophyte kidnappers can wangle bail even after the victim pinpoints them in a police lineup, what more long-time shabu dealers who have built sizeable cash hoards?

There’s money to spread around in drugs. It comes from 1.4 million addicts and 3.5 million occasional users. Shabu suppliers from China don’t care about them because they’re not their kind. Their local partners don’t care either because they can easily migrate to America when the going gets rough. Street pushers care about them so long as they buy the stuff. On the law-enforcement side of the fence, do policemen, prosecutors and judges care enough? No, not from what we see, save for rare examples of committed ones. So how can this fight against drugs ever win?

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An Internet scam has been making the rounds these past several years, asking e-mail recipients for their bank accounts so that certain ex-dictators from, say, Zimbabwe or Brazil or Serbia, can park their money. It offers the gullible hefty commissions from the zillions of dollars that will be laundered through his account. Of course, its objective is to clean out the account once the recipient falls for the con artists.

The scam has been modified somewhat, and now uses Erap’s name:

Dear Sir:

My name is Cedia D. Estrada, the wife of Mr. Joseph Estrada, the former President of the Philippines located in Southeast Asia. My husband was recently impeached from office by a backed uprising of mass demonstrators and the Senate. My husband is presently in jail and facing trial on charges of corruption, embezzlement, and the mysterious charge of plunder which might lead to death sentence. The present government is forcing my husband out of Manila to avoid demonstrations by his supporter. During my husband’s regime as President of Philippine, I realized some reasonable amount of money from various deals that I successfully executed. I have plans to invest this money for my children’s future on real estate and industrial production. My husband is not aware of this because I wish to do it secretly for now.

Before my husband was impeached, I secretly siphoned the sum of $51,587,680 million USD (Fifty-one million, five hundred and eight-seven thousand, six hundred and eighty United States dollars) out of the Philippines and deposited the money with a security firm that transports valuable goods and consignments through diplomatic means. I also declared that the consignment was solid gold and my foreign business partner owned it.

I am contacting you because I want you to go to the security company and claim the money on my behalf since I have declared that the consignment belong to my foreign business partner. You shall also be required to assist me in investment in your own country.

I hope to trust you as a God fearing person who will not sit on this money when you claim it, rather assist me properly, I expect you to declare what percentage of the total money you will take for your assistance.

When I receive your positive response, I will let you know where the security company is and the payment pin code to claim the money which is very important.

For now, let all our communication is by e-mail because my line are right now connected to the Philippines Tele-communication Network services.

Please also send me your telephone and fax number. I will give more details when I receive your reply. – Mrs. Cedia Esrada Anybody who falls for that is ready to be mesmerized into attacking Malacañang.

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Philippine Ports Authority general manager Alfonso Cusi disowned the letter that bore his name and photograph (Feedback, 17 April 2002) and sent by a supplier named Annie S. Fazon. Well and good, for it distorted what I wrote on the port users’ beef with PPA (Gotcha, 15 April 2002).

The letter claimed that I am for walk-in-the-park renewal of expiring contracts to operate seaports, which it said is dangerous. On the contrary, I precisely aired the port users’ complaint that there should be transparent public biddings in lieu of the PPA’s dangerous automatic extension of contracts for another two years. PPA says extensions are meant to find out if expiring contractors are capable of improving their operations and developing the seaports. I quoted the users as asking what more the PPA needs to find out after seeing for years, while the contracts were in force, the poor operations and failure to develop.

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