Managing expectations

Since he is not, by his own admission, the best of communicators, law enforcement officials may be correct in saying that President Duterte’s messaging might have been a bit off when he said the drug problem has so “worsened” that cops are “on the brink of surrendering.”

A more accurate statement might be that the drug problem is worse than he thought. Duterte has expressed this sentiment several times in the past, as he pushed back his self-imposed six-month deadline for eradicating the menace.

Saying that the problem has worsened can be interpreted as an admission that his brutal drug campaign, which has led to 5,176 deaths from July 1, 2016 to Jan. 31 this year, as acknowledged by the police, has been a failure. It’s doubtful that this is the message Duterte wants to convey in his deep frustration.

What must be evident to him by now is that he has underestimated the extent of this problem – and he’s still groping in the dark for a solution.

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Duterte has made no secret of his method of attacking the problem: he would replicate nationwide what he did in his home city of Davao.

On a national level, however, the drug problem goes way beyond neighborhood shabu pushers who can be terrorized by tokhang and Double Barrel into stopping their illegal activities.

Drug money is unimaginably big money. Even a miniscule portion of those drug billions, distributed to poorly paid or plain crooked government employees, allows traffickers to move their shipments right through the Bureau of Customs in the Port of Manila, and to operate even from the New Bilibid Prisons. Metro Manila is the country’s drug trafficking central, and for those billions in potential profits, dealers are prepared to kill and be killed.

As of Jan. 31 this year, 170,689 drug personalities have been arrested in 119,841 law enforcement operations under Duterte’s watch. Among those arrested were 263 elected officials, 69 uniformed personnel and 295 other government employees.

Drug profits are so massive that they have financed election campaigns. Narco politics in our country is real, although the extent of the problem is difficult to determine with accuracy. The suspects arrested or killed included barangay officials, who are supposed to serve as anti-drug watchdogs at the grassroots.

Narco politicians and other large-scale traffickers are tough to pin down. They know how to keep their distance from their illegal merchandise. They can afford expensive lawyers and accountants to give them deniability. They know how to go around our laws. And when that doesn’t work, they can deploy drug money to buy everyone at every step of the criminal justice system – the cops and jailers, prosecutors, judges and higher court justices.

The kind of corruption depicted in those TV dramatizations about the billionaire drug cartel leaders of South America is also happening here, although not yet as pervasive. In the Netflix series on Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, it was mentioned that his group had planned to expand to Southeast Asia. One of the countries considered for their operations was the Philippines.

I don’t know how accurate that part was, but drug mules linked to the Sinaloa cartel have been arrested in our country.

South America, however, is a long way from the Philippines. There are areas right in our neighborhood that are centers of illegal drug production, both natural and synthetic. The Golden Triangle in the border areas of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar is one of the two major producers of opium poppies (the biggest is Afghanistan). Anti-narcotics agents say the Chinese triads or crime rings operate numerous laboratories across Asia that synthesize methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu.

China has been battling the opium trade for centuries. Yet the trade has survived, fueled by persistent demand.

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Duterte is right; methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu contains toxic substances that can fry the brain. Look at some of the ingredients: acetone, sulfuric acid, brake oil, anhydrous ammonia, lye or sodium hydroxide, red phosphorus (used in matchboxes and flares), lithium (used in batteries), hydrochloric acid (for plastic) and toluene (used in brake fluid).

Still, the demand has always been there, despite the toxic ingredients. People want to escape reality, to get high, to enhance or numb their senses. And so, despite an ever-growing list of shabu pushers being shot dead, the traffickers appear undeterred.

Like crimes such as thievery, drug trafficking is born of need – not of the offender, but of other people. It feeds a demand, like the world’s oldest profession.

The drug menace cannot be completely eradicated; it can only be prevented from getting out of hand, the way it did in Colombia and Mexico at the height of cartel operations, when the illegal trade fed corruption, narco politics and bad governance.

President Duterte’s frustration is understandable, but he cannot afford to give up. His anti-narcotics teams have recalibrated their approach and are now talking of a “whole of nation approach” to the drug menace. Apart from continuing their raids and drug stings, they have brought in the anti-money laundering police and tax inspectors to prevent drug dealers from enjoying the fruits of the illegal trade. More rehabilitation centers are being put up for abusers.

What President Duterte can do is manage expectations – those of the public and his own.