Lim to take spray-painting straight to Supreme Court

Interior and Local Government Secretary Alfredo Lim said yesterday he will question before the Supreme Court (SC) the Court of Appeals (CA)'s decision declaring his spray-painting campaign unconstitutional.

He did not say when he will file his appeal.

"We will question the ruling directly before the SC and I will never give up this campaign while we are obeying the CA ruling. We will continue to gather pieces of evidence against suspected drug pushers and, as soon as we finally get the nod of the High Court, we will go straight to the offenders' houses," he said in a speech during the national conference of the Inner Wheel Clubs of the Philippines.

He also told the delegates that he is not politicking or grandstanding while he is carrying out his anti-drug campaign.

"I am just committed to crush these illegal drug syndicates and all the people engaged in the nefarious act of drug pushing, small and big-time pushers alike," he said.

"Illegal drugs will be here for good and peddlers and purveyors are out to ruin lives and families. But despite the temporary setback, I will not end my no-nonsense campaign against illegal drugs," he added.

He said that no amount of criticism can derail his plan to improve peace and order in the country.

Lim was a former police general and a former director of the National Bureau of Investigation, whose alleged heavy-handed tactics earned him the moniker "Dirty Harry."

"I am going to do (my anti-drug campaign) with the same zeal, intensity and determination as I have demonstrated while tackling various jobs as a public servant for 47 years," he said.

He told civic-oriented groups not to hesitate in fighting people engaged in drugs "because we are not dealing with good, unblemished people but those who can destroy our children's lives and disturb the serenity of our society."

Lim also said he was surprised to find out that he lost his case at the CA because of a technicality.

And he blamed Manila Mayor Lito Atienza for it.

The interior secretary said Atienza never forwarded any of the CA's summons for him to answer a petition that questioned the constitutionality of his scarlet-letter drive.

"That is why our side was never heard by the Court of Appeals," he said during the President's weekly radio program. "I would like to know why the legal office of the Manila City Hall, which received the notice, did not transmit such a notice to us."

"If the notice was transmitted to us, we could have answered it and got a fighting chance," he added.

Meanwhile, Lim said he will hold a drug summit with the private sector on Feb. 14 to discuss ways on battling the narcotics trade while his hands are tied by the court ruling.

He said the planned summit at the Philippine International Convention Center actually aims to explore other strategies that would combat illegal drugs.

The interior secretary had launched an anti-drug campaign last month by spray-painting the homes of two defendants in drugs cases with warnings such as: "This is the house of a drug dealer, stay away."

However, the appellate court declared the scarlet-letter drive unconstitutional.

Lim said he has also invited members of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines and non-government organizations to join the summit.