EDITORIAL — Drugs near the Palace

With many people using and dealing drugs nowadays, this has given rise to another opportunity for people in this nefarious business to make even more money; the provision of “safe spaces” where users can indulge in this destructive vice away from prying eyes or the police.

We call them drug dens, locally known as “sak-anan”. But while the name implies safety because it means an area of elevation, presumably far from the scrutiny of others, by no means are such places guaranteed safe, as we often see in news reports that police raid them.

Drug dens are normally located in shady neighborhoods or so-called interior areas away from public spaces, but just recently a drug den was found in the most unlikely of places; near the Malacañang Palace complex in the San Miguel District of Manila City.

According to a news report, a joint operation by the National Bureau of Investigation, the Presidential Security Group, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, and local police netted drug suspect Edgar Ventura in San Miguel last October 16.

Ventura was found operating a drug den and drugs and drug paraphernalia were found during the raid, although an accomplice of his was able to escape during the operation.

It’s good that Ventura was arrested, although it was not immediately known how long he had been operating there and who his clientele were. It’s also good that the PSG was part of this raid. Had they not been part of it it could have been interpreted as them having not known of this threat near Malacañang.

The area around Malacañang Palace is one of the most affluent and secure places in the country. For someone to think he can run a drug operation there tells something about how drugs have reached even the most sophisticated levels of society --and how some drug dealers have become so daring that they think they can just operate anywhere.

If someone dared to establish a drug den near the Malacañang Palace complex, we wonder how many drug dens are in less-affluent but certainly still-exclusive enclaves.