Erstwhile was the drug list. This list is said to be contained in a so-called “blue book” which a drug syndicate keeps. Per public knowledge, in this book can be found the names directly involved in the drug trade, including the protectors, dealers, pushers and even the suspected police assets. It reportedly include the amount each “stakeholder” or “player” receives and owing to the “group.” Thus for law enforcement agencies which ardently track and pin down drug personalities, the blue book is essential.
Over time, with the spate of summary execution and extra-judicial killings, the drug list has metamorphosed into a species of hit list and now in the new concoction, the “kill list.” This is how the series of killing of suspected drug personalities is currently called. According to rough estimate there are 1.8 million drug users in the country of which, following President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s tall order to rid the country of the drug menace, 57,816 self-confessed drug users and 2,157 pushers surrendered and 136 killed from noon of June 30 to noon of July 11, 2016. Of this number, 85 were neutralized in police operations and 51 by unidentified hit men. PNP-accredited funeral parlors in Metro Manila are complaining because they end up losing in their business due to a number of unclaimed bodies.
Is this not a realization of what PRRD painted in his pronouncements days ahead of his oath-taking and in his inaugural speech? Indeed funeral parlors fall short to accommodate the enormous number of dug personalities killed, most of whom could aptly be identified as victims. By his utterances such as in his speech in his thanksgiving party in Davao City, PRRD in effect gave the justification for the killing frenzy to happen – the justification to end the life of drug personality being arrested if in the course of the operation, the life of the arresting officers, in fact many in each time, is under threat or if the person being arrested tries to wriggle away. The culture of death starts to sprout as feared by the pro-life advocates.
Noteworthy is that those who were killed apparently lived in shanties, in fact impoverished, not being able to make both ends meet and were pushed into peddling illegal drugs as only recourse to tide over the family’s hunger day by day, while no establishment welcomes them for employment. What about those in huge or at least decent apartments, the big time ones and the so-called big fishes? They remain alive in spite of reports that when arrested they tried to engage the police officers in shoot out. Is it because these latter type of suspected drug personalities have the means to hire good lawyers and post bail, which the impoverished ones could not afford?
Where is justice in this mode of cleansing for change? The poor cries “Ouch!” while the rich are yet off the hook and so free to roam and victimize some more. When will the local police force be able to produce the person of drug lords before the public? PRRD named five generals allegedly protecting the drug trade in the country. He also warned of same involvement of mayors and barangay officials and vowed to make them answerable for the proliferation of the illegal drugs trade in their respective turfs. He has likewise warned alleged drug lords Peter Co and Herbert Colangco not to attempt to escape or go out from jail lest they die. Meaning they are still alive and kicking to do their business while in the National Bilibid Prison.
The two allegedly belong to the Chinese international illegal narcotics network lurking in the country. The other networks as disclosed by authorities are based in Nigeria and Mexico. So far, personalities from the Chinese group have been publicized. What about from the two others international drug trade groups? When will the police officers who easily kill economically deprived drug personalities disclose the people involved in the drug trade from Nigeria and from Mexico? Who among their ranks belong to any of these three international networks of drug syndicates? Are they also in the kill list? The people cannot wait to see this kind of action as well.
