IF the incumbency of President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” is to be point of reckoning, the 1972 Dangerous Drug’s Act, RA 6425, principally authored by my late father, Cebu Senator Rene Espina (Senate version was adopted by the Lower House), was visionary. Foretelling by 44 years, the necessity to pass a law addressing a future menace to Philippine society. In particular, expected spike in violent crimes, with dreadful after-effects on the Filipino home.
Flipping the narrative on what was a political dig by the second highest office in the land, accusing President Duterte’s anti-drug program a dismal “failure” (her “1 over 100 rating”), the good lady may have “yellowed over” the Aquino administration’s eerie silence in exposing the existence of the lucrative narcotics trade in our country. In 6 years of “Daang Matuwid”, an oxymoron of sorts, no paragraph, no sentence, no phrase, nary a word, was dedicated in the ‘State of the Nation Address’ (SONA) on the evil of this mature and real threat to law, order, our family, and it’s nefarious effects on our democracy, with punctuation on national security.
Dismal “failure” in many words is equated to, “pitifully, disgracefully, gloomy, depressing, dreary, grim, etc.” Madam Leni, may I guide you on another lexicon – circumspection. Meaning “Watchfulness, full attention to all circumstances”. As Co-chair of the ICAD (Inter-Agency Committee Against Illegal Drugs), 18 days is an anemic, if not a deficient reference, to parade sweeping conclusions, given the vista of 1,095 days of intervention under “Digong” to inoculate an accumulated malady, compounded and inherited from a previous presidency. Note, a snap-shot is a confined perspective, in a greater panorama. It is never the entire picture nor story. What is dismal in 14 shabu labs dismantled, 419 drug dens demolished? Estimated 5.1 tons of shabu, 2.2 tons marijuana, 500 kgs of cocaine, 42,473 ecstasy pills confiscated, worth P40.39B pesos. Arrests 220,728 (HVT 8,185) drug violators, 16,706 drug cleared barangays etc.
