I asked Prof. Jose Maria Sison on his thoughts on the current administration’s campaign against illegal drugs. President Rodrigo Duterte commenced with his bombshell-like revelations regarding illegal drug proliferation in the country last week, naming generals, policemen and government officials allegedly protecting drug lords. A spate of arrests leading to drug-related deaths as well as killings and dumping of bodies of alleged pushers observably escalated since the illegal drugs-hating president won the elections or took office. Duterte and the newly appointed Chief of the Philippine National Police Ronald Dela Rosa promised to eliminate the drug problem that the former blamed for destroying the youth and this country’s future.
On the other side, Duterte’s staunch position against illegal drugs were also received with hopes that efforts to realize the people’s resounding clamor for the elimination of big-time drug syndicates and their government protectors would finally be at hand.
President Duterte named police generals retired Deputy Director General Marcelo Garbo Jr, former National Capital Region Police Office director Chief Superintendent Joel Pagdilao, former Quezon City Police District Office director Chief Superintendent Edgardo Tinio, former Western Visayas police chief Chief Superintendent Bernardo Diaz, and former PNP Director for Training Service Vicente Loot, who is now mayor of Daanbantayan, Cebu of having involvement in protecting shady illegal drug trading operations in the Philippines. Links of the five generals to the former DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government) Secretary and presidential candidate Mar Roxas were being traced after old reports that the same set of generals met with the staff of Roxas during the election campaign at the Novotel Hotel located in his clan’s Araneta Center. Roxas has denied having any links with these generals.
“President Duterte apparently based himself on investigation reports on the complicity of the five generals with major drug lords. Thus, there is the observation that the cases should have been brought to court before any publicity,” Sison explained on the possible intelligence basis of the president’s drug trade revelations.
“I do not think so. They are at the receiving end of shaming and serious accusations by a president who is still popular. They will play defensive at first and appear like meek lambs. But they are likely to secretly campaign among their mistahs (their batch mates in the Philippine Military Academy and the Police Academy) against the Duterte government,” Prof. Sison surmised on the position of the five generals after they were named publicly by the president.
“In the meantime, the yellow trolls and others are publicly complaining against Duterte for supposedly engaging in trial by publicity,” he added on the line that these said ‘narco-generals’ are mere black propaganda victims.
“On the other hand, alleged drug-related extrajudicial killings which were supposed to have started even before June 30 is being ascribed to the Duterte government,” he pointed.
Sison conjectured that many military and police officers at various levels acted as protectors of drug syndicates because they earn huge amounts of money from their part in the illegal activity. By being so, he said that they were culpable for the spread of the illegal drug trade.
He explained that the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and New People’s Army (NPA) were correct in their position against the drug lords and their political, military and police protectors and collaborators.
“I think that the people’s army, the people’s militia and the self-defense units of the revolutionary mass organizations are ready to use the necessary amount of force to arrest and disable the drug lords and their protectors. It is a matter of self-defense for arresting units to use force against suspects who are armed and dangerous and resist arrest,” he elaborated on the position of the CPP and the NPA on illegal drug trade operations.
According to him, “those who do not resist arrest have the chance to contest the charges against them before the people’s court in accordance with due process.”
He timely said that the mass movement could also do a lot to stop the illegal drug trade.
According to him, “[the people] can secure entire communities from this menace. It can encourage the addicts and the small time pusher-users to go to the rehabilitation centers. They are sick and need treatment. They do not deserve to be killed.”
“President Duterte uses strong words to show his determination and frighten the drug criminals. But I think that being a lawyer and an astute politician he would give orders to the police to follow the law regarding due process. Otherwise he would be swamped with accusations of human rights violations nationally and internationally,” Prof. Sison stressed out on the present government’s supposedly rabid anti-illegal drug campaign.
Prof. Sison observed that previous governments had been ineffective against the illegal drug trade because politicians, military and police officers protect and collaborate with the drug lords.
“I think that illegal drug manufacturing and trade in certain countries in Latin America are of far larger scale because they serve the largest market, which is North America. But I also recognize that the illegal drug menace has its own gravity in the Philippines because it has already spread to at least 85 per cent of the barangays in the Philippines,” he said.
“If not stopped effectively, the illegal drug business can turn the Philippines into a narco-state because many politicians, the military and police are profiting from the business,” warned Prof. Sison.
Sison said that the illegal drug proliferation was a major manifestation of a sick society and the decadence of the semicolonial and semifeudal society.
“Among the most pampered one per cent of society, there are those who use cocaine to heighten their orgasms and to have relief from boredom. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of the people who are unemployed or underemployed and are impoverished try to take flight from their misery by addicting themselves to religion or to shabu which is supposed to be the poor man’s cocaine,” he said on the impacts of illegal drug proliferation as a major symptom of this nation’s chronic social disease that has been leaving a mark on the Filipino people’s daily lives.
“Illegal drug proliferation is a way for US imperialism and the local exploiting classes to preoccupy and subjugate significant portions of the toiling masses of workers and peasants and dull the senses of portions of the middle strata. It is a way of conjuring the illusion that the dire conditions of the oppressed and exploited are their own responsibility,” he explained on the deep historical and sociological roots of illegal drug proliferation in the Philippines.
According to him, “The wealthiest and most powerful in the exploitative society may have no direct hand in this kind of outright illegal activity but they create the conditions in which the drug lords find a niche for profit-making in mimicry of the highest oligarchs.”
“I have already pointed out that as a lawyer and politician President Duterte has the mental faculty to recognize the danger of facing too many complaints of human rights violations from the press and human rights organizations. So early on, for his own good, he has to stress respect for the right to due process. In fact, he points this out sometimes and says that an arresting unit can act in self-defense and use the necessary amount of force to subdue a suspect who resists arrest,” Prof. Sison reiterated on the possible repercussions of Duterte’s anti-illegal drug campaign on his popularity.
According to him, “the people’s army, the people’s militia and the self-defense units of the revolutionary mass organizations are properly guided by principles, policies and rules in this regard.”
He concluded that those who support the Duterte government and those of the Left on their own account must uphold the right to due process in dealing justly with criminality and criminals and must oppose human rights violations in this regard.
