‘No talk, no mistake’

 LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

 It is a failure mark itself. It is either that one is a genius or the opposite if any person can make an honest to goodness report about the situation of the war against illegal drugs in so short a time such as 18 days of being co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD).

The way I see it, nobody in a high government position, not even VP Leni Robredo can make a truthful assessment of the drug war when even President Duterte already admitted that he failed to solve the problem in six months as promised during the election campaign in 2016.

After three years into office, he said the Philippine drug problem that he realized as an enormous one may not even be resolved after he finishes his term. Thus, no whiz kid who has not seen the end of a problem can make an authentic report about it.

And so, VP Robredo’s report of the drug war, saying that the government's anti-drug campaign is equivalent to a rating of only one percent of 100 could be correct if she based it on the present statistics of what was seized during the 3-year old drug war, but to say that it is a failure is not accurate.

Making a final assessment based on statistics that says that only less than one percent of the total shabu supply that flooded the country was seized in three years of operation, is far from the actual situation on the ground because the drug war is a continuing battle.

One government official described VP Robredo’s assessment of the country’s anti-illegal drug war report as “counting the chickens before the eggs are hatched.”

So, by this time, it is pointless to make a final say because as long as the drug addicts and the money is there, the drug lords and the supply of shabu in the country will not stop.

There are many things to consider. Imagine the immensity of the problem if it is true that the accomplishment of the PNP includes the arrest of 300,000 drug pushers, surrender of about 1.5 million small-time peddlers and users.

That some 5,552 drug suspects were killed in shootouts with lawmen and around P42 billion worth of shabu were confiscated in the past three years is not just one per cent as VP Robredo assessed.

These achievements by the PNP and the other concerned agencies should not be ignored. VP Robredo cannot deny her being in politics. Sooner or later, she will need the help of people. But she might also just be ignored by them.

Reading from news reports, her assessment makes the vice president inaccurate too because she based her report on statistics for the past three years that she herself criticized by saying that the government’s agencies lack accurate data on illegal drugs.

To straighten things, maybe the better action is for VP Robredo and the agencies concerned to make use of a comparative analysis of the drug war of the current administration to the previous one.

By doing so, the contradicting parties might find the correct rating percentage and true assessment of the country’s drug problem. The situation might just appear clearer if there is a comparison.

But, there is something that came out of VP Robredo’s report. It made people realize the scale and extent of the problem. At least, now we are more aware of the harm and effects of shabu on people and a community.

And as one senator claimed, people were afraid of drug addicts before the declaration of a drug war. Now the addicts are the ones afraid. That may be believable because indeed, there are changes in the neighborhood. 

By the way, senate president Tito Sotto said President Duterte’s high approval ratings after three years is incompatible with the assessment report of VP Robredo. The president’s high approval ratings in his third year in office belie the claim that the campaign against illegal drugs was a massive failure, he said.

For Senator Bong Go, an avid Duterte supporter, he backed Sotto’s claim saying that he believed 79 per cent of Filipinos who are satisfied with the drug war more than just one person using her own computation of a grade of one percent. Bong Go was referring to the results of the Social Weather Stations survey last December.

The three-year old drug war can be assessed from many directions and many considerations. And since the problem is continuing, the whole situation cannot be seen just yet.

This, especially when one’s participation was for only 18 days. With that, critics cannot be stopped for saying that VP Robredo’s report is a cover up for her failure to ease the problem.

Not only that, critics will look at her actions as some way to hit back at the administration that she does not belong to. Of course, that is a natural reaction a politician on the other side of a fence cannot be blamed for.

Sympathy could have been on her side if she just faded away silently after President Duterte removed her from ICAD. Instead, she made a not so believable assessment of the drug problem based on her 18-day participation.

In this country, the lines “less talk, less mistake” and “no talk, no mistake” are applicable.