No charges vs poppy grower

La Trinidad, Benguet – Septuagenarian Lilia Kidapalos, the unsuspecting Atok town flower grower who grew and sold cut flowers that she did not know were opium poppies, may find herself free due to a legal technicality.

Kidapalos is 73 years old and exempt from criminal liability by reason of age, said legal expert and Baguio criminal lawyer Edgar Avila.

Another Baguio City-based lawyer concurred with Avila and vowed to go to Atok to assist Kidapalos on Saturday, when the authorities intend to torch Kidapalos’ crop of poppies and, possibly, indict her.

But for her age, Kidapalos would have faced criminal liabilities and a life sentence for merely growing poppies on her 50-square meter flower lot. Some 295 fully-grown and half-grown poppy plants were discovered there by Atok town authorities on Tuesday.

But Atok town Mayor Concepcion Balao defended Kidapalos: "She did not know (she was growing opium poppies). I saw that the old woman flower grower was in good faith in growing such a beautiful flowering plant."

Extracts from the opium poppy are used in manufacturing morphine, a powerful anesthetic, as well as the illegal drugs cocaine and heroin.

Balao said she will intercede on Kidapalos’ behalf, insisting that Kidapalos had no intention of shipping poppies that can be used to make illegal drugs and only bought and stored the flower’s seeds for her cut flower lot along Kilometer 46 in Atok town: "We will see what we can do (to help)."

Kidapalos’ poppy patch was planted just beside the national highway also known as the Baguio-Bontoc road or Halsema highway.

Samples of the plant were brought to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) headquarters in Manila for testing and proved positive that it is the plant from which opium – the mother drug of morphine, cocaine and heroin – is made.

Under normal circumstances, Avila said, one cannot invoke the "no intention" or "no knowledge" argument as a defense – particularly in the cases that fall under special laws like the anti-narcotics law.

However, according to lawyer Tony Pawi, who does not share Avila’s view, "while intention is immaterial (in a special law), considering that mere possession is punishable by our Dangerous Drugs law, intent to perpetrate (a crime) is a necessary element."

However, Pawi sees a problem with Kidapalos’ sibling in London, who shipped the package of seeds to her. Authorities might track Kidapalos’ sibling down instead of arresting Kidapalos herself, he said.