Fred Lim, tiger aprowl: How far can he go?

The man is a phenomenon. Alfredo Lim is a tiger aprowl in the jungle. His eyes are slits of glowing coal in the dark, seeing everything. A slow snarl slithers out of a guttural throat and the whiskers flare and stiffen. Somewhere the bushes stir. A right paw suddenly stabs the air. This is showtime for the new secretary of the interior and local governments as he goes back to an old act -- spray-painting the houses of suspected drug pushers and drug lords. As Fred Lim works that red spray, he seeks to put the curse of God and Cain on the offender. As drama, it is superb. As a headline-grabber, it is unbeatable.

But can he stay on that rope and not fall off?

All the news or almost (except the Marines) are now focused on Secretary Lim. It is Hollywood stuff, of course. You get helpings of the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Clint Eastwood and Dirty Harry, Wild Bill Hickok when he rode the range, Kirk Douglas when he was afire in OK Corral, the Mark of Zorro, the Catman, the Batman and, of course, Superman. The masses love it, dote on it, for it gives them the hope and expectation that at last things are moving. For them, due process doesn't mean a damn thing. Until now, not a single drug lord has been arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned.

But there is an uproar.

There is the claim coming from a formidable group of senators and congressmen, lawyers' groups, human rights groups, the Human Rights Commission, of course, and those who would not see a single hair of an individual's right under the law pulled out, that what Secretary Lim is doing is unlawful. And ominous. They say a person's abode is sacrosanct (Every man's home is his palace) and to violate that is a step leading to strongman rule or martial law. And how about those living in the felon's house? If they are innocent, aren't their rights devastated and desecrated?

I supported then Mayor Lim when he launched his spray-painting three years ago. I still do. Many of us even cheered when the bodies of suspected drug pushers were discovered at dawn in Manila's gutters, a cardboard stuck on their bloodied chests with the words: "I am a drug pusher." I figured, and still do, that our country needs somebody like Fred Lim who can dance on the razor's edge, skip on a potbellied policeman's corrupt credentials, and strike. At crime. With a knife, with a club, with a spray of bullets.

But I have to draw the line somewhere.

It has been a long time since the likes of Don Pepe Oyson keeled over from the vendetta slugs of Fred Lim's executioners. The way I look at it, this spray-painting takes place in squatter villages and targets the small fry. Sure, they will flee to safer places, perhaps in Pasay, or Quezon City or Makati. And from there, they will operate again. But how about the big narcotics lords themselves? How about the police officers and men in cahoots with them? How about politicians, they with the golden toothpick and the moneybags bulging with drug lucre? How about powers-that-be in the Palace whose loot could come from narcotics?

I do not doubt the courage, the guts wrapped around Fred Lim's waist like a deadly bandolier of 45s. Just look at Fred Lim's eyes, and you know he has killed many criminals. They have the gleam of a gun barrel's snout. He is the Philippines' most awarded and decorated policeman. He seldom has need to use two bullets. "One bullet is enough," he told me during a TV interview. Fred Lim hardly smiles. His has been the world of the hunter and the hunted, the badge of the law and the escaping criminal, and he hates crime with uncommon venom.

But as I said earlier, Secretary Lim has to get the big ones for his spray-painting to vault from the sweatshop to big time. From penny-ante to the jackpot.

Oh, they caught one all right, but he got away. We all cheered when President Fidel Ramos succeeded in getting Alfredo Tiongco back to Manila from Hong Kong where he fled and sought refuge after a police raid on his suburban residence. No less than Gen. Panfilo Lacson was commissioned by then justice secretary Tito Guingona to get Tiongco in Hong Kong and bring him back. What happened? Tiongco got clapped in the calaboose all right. He was tried in court. With all the evidence against him, with his boat caught stacked with narcotics, with witnesses pointing the finger at him, you know what happened?

A regional trial court judge -- would you believe! -- found Alfredo Tiangco innocent. This drug lord, slippery as he was cunning, wise in the ways of the surface and underworld, loaded with cash, and friend of many a policeman and many a politico, is now again on the loose. And nobody is complaining. Was it scripted? When you are through with the small fry, Secretary Lim, go get them -- the big ones. Then and only then can we the citizenry be sure the Estrada administration is serious in cracking down on crime -- and on the drug lords who do not live in squatter's homes but in mansions fit for relocation to the Riviera.

As Alejandro Melchor III once told us, "You won't recognize the real drug lord when you see him. He is elegantly dressed in a business suit, is well-placed in our society, and you would never imagine he was engaged in drugs." We were made to understand by Mr. Melchor that they had penetrated almost every elite nook in business and government. And, yes, they were untouchable. He talked as though a little frightened, as though an adjoining table in the restaurant was bugged, slipping a glance here and a glance there to be sure the coast was clear.

One thing I know. American CIA and other federal agents are in town.

Why are they in town? Some say (the more imaginative ones, the Ibon, the James Bond types) they are here to sniff like bloodhounds at the Joseph Estrada presidency. They want to be convinced he can stay the course and if he can, the US government will support him. If not, this analysis goes, Washington will help trigger a coup against Erap Estrada. Others say they are here in conjunction with the forthcoming joint US-Philippines military exercises. Since "enemy"China is just there as the eagle flies, it will be worth their while to snoop at the South China Sea. But the more convincing argument is that they are here because the Philippines is beginning to look and smell and behave like Colombia as a major transit point for narcotics in Asia.

The mainland and other Chinese are reportedly in command of this massive drug trade whose main markets are in America and the West. We can thus see the dismay and discomfiture of the Americans and therefore their renewed interest in the Philippines.

Which brings us back to Fred Lim. After Joseph Estrada, he is possibly the most controversial official in the Philippines. His very person, his physical looks and his record as a crime-buster invite controversy. He is blamed for the Mendiola massacre, which he had nothing to do with. When he ran for the presidency of the Philippines in 1998, everything looked all right. The nation needed a hero figure and he filled the bill. Until Malacañang Merlins, played dirty, raked up his citizenship, called him a bastard Chinese to his face, a false Filipino. This was cruel, ruthless, unfair. Officials documents proved Fred Lim was a Filipino.

But the damage was done. Despite Cory Aquino's and Jaime Cardinal Sin's support, the Chinese ploy spread like a plague and did Fred Lim in. Midway during the presidential campaign, it was pathetic. Lim broke into tears, wept almost convulsively when I guested him on Firing Line. His financial supporters, mostly Chinese-Filipinos, abandoned him.

He admitted he was a bastard child, but was Filipino to the core. The wounds, the insults, the ignominies of the past, his childhood where he was abandoned by his parents at the Hospicio de San Jose, his bootblack days, his grim determination to study, his being made fun of as intsik by neighborhood kids and scorned, his eventual success at law school despite a scrawny pocketbook, just borrowing books at the library, all the while earning honors as a policeman -- the best the nation had ever known. Now his kumpadre, Joseph Estrada, has anointed Fred Lim to the highest post he has ever occupied as a public official.

The job can make him or break him. Along the way, Fred Lim will find his path blocked by the rich, the mighty, the powerfully positioned. His heat-seeking skills as a sleuth will certainly lead to fire-fights with some biggies in Malacañang. Along the way, he will meet criminal Chinese eyeball-to-eyeball, Chinese presumably with powerful links to the Palace. Will Fred Lim draw his quick gun and blaze away or will he be stopped by the Palace? And if he is stopped, will he then slink away? Or will he fight to the last bullet?

Already, a new wave of Chinese-Filipinos, suspected criminals mostly, are afoot in the land. How does Fred Lim deal with them?