Coddled

In the wake of Michael Jackson’s death, Dr. Deepak Chopra went around the television stations denouncing the high-flying doctors who service the community of celebrities inhabiting Los Angeles.

These doctors, claims Chopra, use the cloak of their medical authority to enable celebrities to access prescription drugs. They facilitated what might be called legalized substance abuse.

Pending the final results of Jackson’s autopsy, we do not know if prescription drugs played a role in his death. It is widely acknowledged, however, that the pop icon was using pain killers and a wide range of other prescribed drugs.

Using the cloak of medical authority to facilitate substance abuse is probably a means open only to the wealthy. Everywhere else, substance abuse is a scourge propagated by the more traditional means: using the muscle of well-financed syndicates; corrupting law enforcers; and, exploiting political influence as a shield.

Take the case of Taguig, a city that has so suddenly gained notoriety for easy access to prohibited or controlled substances. The whole range, they say, may be had here: from the fashionable party drugs used with impunity in expensive bars and discos to the lowly “shabu”, sometimes referred to as the poor man’s cocaine.

Last week, agents of the PDEA arrested one Joel Tinga. In a buy-bust operation, agents caught Tinga with P100,000 worth of shabu.

It might seem incidental that Joel is a cousin of Taguig mayor Freddie Tinga. But wait, go back to the records.

Months ago, three men — Fernando Tinga, Allan Carlos Tinga and Alberto Tinga — were arrested for drug pushing. They were found in what some reporters describe as the ancestral home of the Tinga political clan.

In another incident, two men named Bernado Tinga and Hector Tinga were arrested, also for drug pushing. Only the third man in that group, a certain Arnel Montano, was charged and meted life imprisonment for dealing in illegal drugs.

It is hard not to suspect that Montano was jailed, and his accomplices remain free, because he did not have the right surname.

Mayor Freddie Tinga, who succeeded his father who is now justice at the Supreme Court, has distanced himself from the arrested drug dealers. Despite sharing his surname, the mayor once claimed that several of those arrested were not his relatives.

But there is little he can do with the curse of a unique surname.

Indeed, how many Tingas could there be in Taguig and how distantly related could they possibly be?

The PDEA is now referring to a “Tinga drug syndicate.” The press has taken to using that phrase as well.

To be fair, there is nothing that directly implicates Mayor Freddie Tinga to the illegal drug trade. But it is difficult to completely clear him either.

It could not be completely coincidental that there is a flourishing “Tinga drug syndicate” in a city where the mayor is named Freddie Tinga. The mayor should devote less effort to distancing himself from the suspects and spend more energy getting his local law enforcement apparatus in better shape.

That the PDEA had to step in to bust an apparently thriving syndicate can only mean the matter has been ineffectively handled by the local police. The local law enforcement unit is always the first line of defense against all crimes, illegal drugs included.

We all know, however, that in most Philippine municipalities — not just in Taguig — the effectiveness of law enforcement is often stymied by surnames. Having the correct surname sometimes spells the difference between the police looking away or looking at your case intently.

There is thus an added burden on local executives. They must restrain their relatives, especially those carrying the same surnames as theirs, from exploiting a long-standing vulnerability in our law enforcement. They must take the lead in disciplining relatives who err and making it absolutely clear to their law enforcers that kinship should not stand in the way of duty.

It is on this consideration that we may ascribe some responsibility on Mayor Freddie Tinga. Even if there might be no sin of commission, there is apparently a sin of omission here.

A “Tinga drug syndicate” must have flourished, in part, because those who were part of it imagined — correctly or incorrectly — that their surnames constituted a form of talisman. Even if this was a talisman against the forces of righteousness.

Unfortunately for them, there is now a more relentless PDEA led by a tough and unyielding officer who I must compare to Inspector Javert of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Under the leadership of retired general Dionisio Santiago, the PDEA has become the battering ram in the effort to crush the drug syndicates and save our society from the scourge of substance abuse.

The reason for being of this agency: to cover the vulnerability of local enforcement units to the exercise of political influence intending to coddle criminals. It is the plug to cover the culturally-induced loopholes.

It is an agency that, by design, must be completely impervious to the often intimidating effect of powerful surnames.