Is the fight against the drug lords a movie? Lim turns down FilmCenter

Why is the patience of the government in its dealings with the Moro rebels so limitless? Despite the many times the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) of Salamat Hashim has broken the truce, ambushed military and PNP patrols, kidnapped and murdered, forcibly occupied towns, and burned Catholic chapels, the Estrada administration is still conducting "peace talks" with the MILF.

Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado assured this writer that there is a non-negotiable "cut-off date" to these peace negotiations. "The deal," Orly said, "is that if no peace agreement is reached on or before the deadline of June 30 this year, the armed forces and the PNP will launch a full offensive against the MILF, and this includes the present Camp Abubakar and other sanctuaries."

I hope that this time the government doesn't waver, temporize, or suffer an attack of urong-sulong. Look at the "peace" forged by ex-President Ramos and his administration with former insurgent Chieftain Nur Misuari and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which included literally gifting Misuari with the governorship of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the four predominantly Muslim provinces, plus billions of pesos in development aid. Part of this one-sided contract, which many of us decried as a virtual "surrender" to the Muslim rebels, was the inclusion of thousands of ex-MNLF cadres in the ranks of the armed forces and the Philippine National Police (PNP).

Recently, word reached Manila that an estimated 1,000 MNLF "inductees" have disappeared from the scene, taking their government-issued firearms and ammunition along with them. Now, if these A.W.O.L. Moros have returned to rebellion and banditry, people will find themselves being shot or harassed with government-supplied weaponry.

Can the "Moro rebellion" be solved by parley and by giving Muslim troublemakers lavish concessions? What can we do with people who have been taught, from infancy, to hate or, at the very least, distrust Christians? In Mindanao, in the Islamic areas, what seems to prevail is not the writ of our democratic Republic, and not even Sharia law, but the law of the gun. (Was ex-President FVR hoping to get a Nobel Peace Prize? If so, he didn't get it. Neither did he get peace).

Erap and his peace-talkers won't get "peace" either, the way those MILF hardliners are talking-shooting-then-talking-again. It's a case of "blindman's bluff." In short, they "bluff" us and we're the ones who're blind.

Beware the bullet in the back! That's been the style in Mindanao for four generations. (And before the gun, it was the kris, the kampilan and the Lantaka cannon.) That's why each village was called -- as the Indonesians call them, too -- kota, which means "fort." Every kota a fortress AGAINST us poor, naive Christians.

The United Nations commission -- investigating atrocities and murders in East Timor by pro-Jakarta militia and the Indonesian ABRI (armed forces) itself, in which many Catholic priests and nuns were killed or subjected to humiliation and torture, churches and chapels burned, and entire districts wiped out -- has just issued a strong report calling for a "crime tribunal" to pinpoint the culprits in these massacres and crimes.

It's already clear that the Muslim Indonesians savaged the East Timorese, who are Christians (mostly Catholics), just as they are now killing Christians in their own home islands of Lombok (next to Bali) and the Maluku islands (Spice Islands), including Ambon, where there are large Christian communities. Since 87 percent of Indonesians are increasingly militant Muslims, you can imagine how the tiny Christian minority is suffering and at risk.

The wave of Islamic Fundamentalism which is sweeping the world -- from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Chechnya, Kosovo and Bosnia -- is still, evidently, not clearly understood by the United States and Western Europe. The Russians, no slouches in the atrocity department, already recognize what's up, and how Islamic terrorism and militancy are threatening Russia. (Suddenly they're Orthodox Christians again after 73 years of State Atheism imposed by the Communists). That's why, in defiance of scolding, badgering and hints of a cut-off of credit and financial retaliation by the West, plus the presence of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in Moscow, beseeching them to stop grinding the Muslim Chechens under their heel, Russian President Vladimir Putin is ignoring all calls for him to "stop." He just smiles and continues pounding Grozny into dust.

The Russians are partly descended from the Tatars, and even the "whites" among them have inherited the Tatar mentality. And its quite direct: If you don't destroy your enemies, they will destroy you.

That's what Moscow's "war" in Chechnya is all about. So what if the Russians have already lost 1,500 men. They lost 14 million in World War II but they still beat Hitler.

The Court of Appeals "decision" declaring his spray-painting "shame-the-pusher" campaign "unconstitution-al" hasn't deterred Interior and Local Government Secretary Fred Lim. He's still confident of President Estrada's full support. Although he's put paint brush and paint cans aside, for the nonce, he has already embarked on Phase II of his campaign. He won't let up in the battle to crush the drug pushers and their Drug Lords, that's for sure.

I'm convinced it wasn't a naughty gesture on the part of the President the other day when he offered Lim the use of the Film Center building in the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex (near the Westin Philippine Plaza hotel) as the new headquarters of the DILG. Having heard so many "ghost stories" about that Film Center, Fred politely declined Erap's generous gesture, and will probably opt to occupy another building being proffered by the President in the Legaspi Village area in Makati.

The Film Center, alas, is "bad luck" owing to its tragic history. When the former Superma'am and ex-First Lady, Madam Imelda R. Marcos (who was said to have an "edifice complex") was rushing the completion of that building during martial law so it could be the venue of one of her biggest extravaganzas, an International Film Festival (starring, among others, George Hamilton and other Hollywood guests), the construction was so hurried that the newly-concreted roof collapsed on dozens of workers, burying many of them alive. Since then, there have been "sounds in the night" and other unlucky occurrences there. When the Department of Foreign Affairs was utilizing the Film Center for its Consular division, it didn't take long before the DFA hastily abandoned the building. The foreign office could cope with "lost passports" but not with "lost spirits."

Tenants have come and gone -- quickly decamping. And, by the way, wasn't the Film Center "condemned" as unsafe after a major earthquake?

In any event, the fight against crime is not a movie. It's a serious affair, with serious rackets under attack, and serious casualties.

One of the casualties has already been the spray-painting offensive.

Despite the withdrawal by incumbent National President Arthur Lim of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) of the "spray-painting" case in the Court of Appeals after its "resolution," that case may still reach the Supreme Court. Already, several IBP members are publicly disowning IBP head Lim's action, claiming that it is not reflective of the sentiment of a majority of the association's members who allegedly were not consulted.

That's the way things are in so many associations in this disputatious society of ours: Too many "leaders" speak out and take positions without consulting the members.

Since the Appeals court decision is not yet final and therefore remains sub judice, I won't venture any comment on the merits of the case. However, since the ruling constitutes an issue directly involving public interest and affecting the safety and lives of millions of Filipinos nationwide, we're got the right to say that the CA ruling is a setback to the campaign against the drug menace the number of whose victims has reached alarming levels.

There are now more drug-related deaths and injuries than those resulting from motor vehicle accidents. A great proportion of rapes and sex-related crimes resulting in homicide (not to mention robberies and violence by drug-crazed individuals desperate to finance their evil habit) are linked to the abuse of prohibited drugs.

It's no secret that crooked policemen, law enforcement personnel, suborned government prosecutors and corrupt or weakling members of the judiciary have contributed, in one way or another, to the ballooning of the drug menace. Too many cops are drug-pushers themselves and drug "protectors," and, in the judiciary, certain prosecutors and "hoodlums in robes" have facilitiated the release on bail and eventual acquittal of many drug lords and dealers.

A ranking official of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) confided to this writer that the agency had such a pile of strong evidence against a drug lord that they thought they had him "boxed in" and ready for sentencing. To their surprise, the fellow was acquitted on the basis kuno of "reasonable doubt" by a Quezon City Regional Trial Court judge!

Incidentally, isn't the Court of Appeals Justice who penned (as ponente) the now "celebrated" decision declaring Fred Lim's original "Manila City ordinance" authorizing spray-painting as "unconstitutional" once a Quezon City RTC judge who, some years ago, acquitted and released a fellow charged with kidnapping and carnapping? The NBI, which conducted a rigid surveillance of the "suspect", had compiled what it considered an "air-tight" case against the man -- but the judge acquitted him. The ruling was, by coincidence, also one of "reasonable doubt."

This is a very doubtful society, indeed.

It's pathetic how that group -- still insisting that they were "elected" the new board of directors kuno of the North Greenhills Assn., Inc. -- has been circulating a letter to residents of the subdivision which tries to refute the facts raised in this column and by the vast majority of aggrieved North Greenhills voting members -- who boycotted the ersatz "elections" conducted by this bunch, all by themselves, last January 8.

These individuals even claimed there was an "opposition ticket" (including, susmariosep, my wife) when, in truth and in fact, ALL of those named plus two-thirds of the residents snubbed, didn't participate, and didn't cast any ballots in that false poll.

The circular letter was signed by Francisco S. Antonio, Cesar V. Campos, Perry Y. Uy, Jose J. Duran, Edilberto S. Lingad, Alfredo V. Lagman, Jr., John A. Bautista, Arsenio V. Santos Jr. (last year's president), Manuel A. Acosta, and Demetrio R. Flores, Jr.

The three-page memo used a lot of big words, but it completely ignored two vital questions. All of the signatories had been in last year's board, and in previous boards (do they want to stay officers forever?), except for Cesar Campos. The question posed by the boycotters and this column was: Why had there been no Financial Report or Audit of how those NGA boards had spent the residents' fees and NGA finances for FOUR CONSECUTIVE YEARS? This is required by law.

Is there or is there not a deficit of P4.9 million? Four million nine hundred thousand pesos is not a joke for an association which has only 319 voting member-owners. Are we expected to pay for that accumulated and (wow) large amount -- and how was the deficit incurred? No explanation.

Most important of all, the letter contained a complete falsehood. Let's quote it: "Yes. We did not formulate the rules governing the election. No less than the Commission on Election Chairman, Harriet Demetriou, extended help in formalizing the election rules. Where can you find a subdivision in the Philippines where only the official ballot box used by the Commission on Election on national and local elections should also be used by us? You may not believe it, the Committee on Election complied with this demand."

The COMELEC Chairman, Justice Harriet Demetriou, has personally and categorically DENIED her "rules" were used by this NGA group in their "elections." She declared yesterday that (incidentally at our request) she had met with us and some members of that "other" group December 8, 1999, and suggested 12 guidelines to be followed. She was subsequently informed of the "boycott" since that group was not following the guidelines and rules she had suggested, and stated that she did not want to "legitimize" that sort of "election." Quote and unquote.

The upstart group is bragging that they utilized Comelec-issued ballot boxes. Yes. That, in fact, had been our proposal. But they asked for those boxes (only after we publicized their lack of those COMELEC boxes and padlocks as one of the reasons for our residents' boycott). They made their request in the very last day before their so-called January 8 "election." In any event, they counted their own ballots themselves.

COMELEC Chairman Demetriou confirmed to me and my wife, Preciosa, yesterday that she had known the original "opposition" and reform candidates had officially boycotted the "election," and that she herself had decided not to send "any supervisor", since (her own words) "I can't be party to a fraud."

So, if they used her name, they must now realize it was a grievous mistake. More than 170 residents have already signed a call for "real" elections, and more signatures and proxies are coming in every day. Tama na! Sobra na! It's time for a change.