Drugs: The real score / Why is the Church stonewa

And so, expectedly, they went at Mary "Rosebud" Ong hammer and tongs Wednesday, battered her from brow to beltline, below the beltline, pillar to post, hammer and tongs, ironball to anvil, coalfire to hellfire, to eternity and back, from snakepit to purgatorial pit, all in the effort to crush her charges against Sen. Panfilo Lacson. Lacson himself was present at the cavalry charge, leading off with the accusation that Ms. Ong was reportedly considered by US customs officials as a "witness without credibility."

Even though he spoke briefly, Ping Lacson proved he had mastered the cold grammar of power with the instinct of a prowling tiger and the deadlines of a lunging cobra. His cold eyes, against a cherubic face, gave him away. But it fell to Chief Supt. Reynaldo Acop to carry the brunt of a scathing afternoon attack, branding Rosebud a "pathological liar", a shadow killer, swindler beyond compare, a big drug lord herself, criminal, gambler, shyster, the Hong Kong Triad’s point-woman in the Philippines, "peddling her fantastic tale of cops gone bad, gone mad, gone almost satanical." Jeepers creepers!

It was a scenario out of Hamlet, full of fire and brimstone, better even than the Senate impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada, for stuck in its belly was a love story involving Rosebud and another accused police officer, Supt. John Campos, who could not contain his anger. He called Mary Ong names, as she passed by on her way to the CR and got the ire of Sen. Robert Barbers who was chair of the Senate hearing. Campos, to his credit, apologized. Ah, ex-lovers! les pas des amants desunis, as the poignant French song goes, the footprints of estranged lovers washed out by the waves of the sea.

But let me not get sentimental.

Acop and Lacson emptied their cartridges on Mary Ong. This was a fire-fight especially on the part of the former, of undiminished passion and fury, heatedly denying he was a drug lord, heatedly denying he and his cohorts led by Campos confiscated hundreds of kilos of shabu, recycling and reselling a bulk of them in the market, heatedly denying they subjected some Chinese drug traffickers or pushers to "viaje" gruesome death by the garrot so there would be no trace of blood.

Know what? When finally the guns of Lacson and Acop fell silent, I hardly budged an inch in my conviction that Mary Ong was telling the truth, at least 80 percent of the truth.

What Lacson and Acop were telling us was that they were absolutely innocent, that they deserve a place with the winged angels on the ceiling of Sistine chapel, that they had served the republic well, and did not feel a tad guilty "because in our consciences we have done nothing wrong." I was hearing Ferdinand Marcos all over again. I was hearing Joseph Estrada all over again. And yes, Imelda. Acop was lucky the hearings were adjourned for Sept. 23. Already, Senator Barbers tore holes into his testimony and the others, waiting with their loaded billies, would have punched many of his assertions slug-silly. On questioning, Acop virtually admitted that Chinese drug syndicates had already bribed their way into our courts, the immigration office, Customs, the police, travel agencies.

Col. Victor Corpus, head of Isafp (Intelligence Services, Armed Forces of the Philippines) was right after all. A narco-state was in the process of becoming. Horrors. Acop also admitted the police couldn’t arrest conniving Filipino officials because, well, you know, well, how it is, well. You couldn’t arrest them, sir? Damn. Then what are you policemen for!

But all that aside, let me get one thing in, which has been completely forgotten or ignored or set aside in the hurly-burly of the local narco-drama. This is my belief that the United States, one way or another, will have the last say. Let me elaborate. America considers drugs as the besetting danger to US civilization, the slithering, coiling, hissing river of white crystal spread on elongated tinfoils, or containers or whatnot, that could eventually strangle the lungs, the heart and the soul of what is now the world’s only superpower. I do not exaggerate at all. This is why the US government has poured everything to contain or strangle the drug traffic coming from Colombia in Latin America. Billions of dollars. Experts who have studied and analyzed the effect of drugs on the American youth have forecast, they only have a 20-30 year lead – maybe even shroter – to win this war against drugs. Else, America will collapse from within like the Roman Empire. From a riot of freedom. From a riot of self-gratification.

Now the drug threat from the Philippines is beginning to rival the drug menace from Colombia. Our country has become a major transhipment point of drugs destined for many countries, mainly the US. Not only that. We are already manufacturing shabu, as the Chinese Triad relocate in the Philippines.

Get a load of this. As they are doing in Colombia, the US will do everything it can to stall, smother and slay the drug traffic here. They are now convinced the PNP not only cannot do the job but as Mary Ong avers, could be in cahoots with the Chinese Triad. They have presumably arrived at the conviction our institutions — judiciary, Congress, Malacañang — are close to caving in. At least the corrupt among them. And they are many. After all, drug money amounts to billions of US dollars. Who can resist? The taproots of our culture, besides, are so porous the only thing we produce prodigally are babies. Our dominant religion tells us to forgive our enemies.

So? If nobody in power can do the job, the Americans will not mind at all if the military establishment — either solo or in concert with civil society vigilantes — take over temporarily and wage war on drugs. And if democracy will have to go to hell — for sometme, anyway — the Americans won’t mind so long as drugs destined for the US are stopped cold turkey. The Republican Party is in power. This is no longer Bill Clinton. President Bush and his right-wing condotierre, led by Condoleeza Rice and Dick Cheney, reborn Cold Warriors, could reach (if they are not doing this already) out to our Armed Forces and tell them to damn the torpedoes. Move! Move! Move!

The only fly in the ointment right now, I am told, is Mark Jimenez.

The Americans want him at almost any cost for a brace of charges including tax evasion, racketeering, illegal political contributions, and they tell me, also possible links to drug trafficking. Except that our Department of Justice is stalling allegedly because they need Mr. Jimenez, now a Manila congressman, as a prime witness in the plunder and other charges against Joseph Estrada. This the only reason? I was told that if the Arroyo government extradites Jimenez to the US, then Washington will release devastating evidence that Lacson has substantial dollar deposits in US banks. Even more, Washington will scuttle the embargo on GMA’s state visit to the US. Right now, she cannot set official foot on American soil. No Jimenez, no visit.

Another thing. It is beginning to look like where US interests are concerned, maybe even ours, Sen. Ping Lacson has become expendable. He has become too exposed, like gold fish in a bowl, and even if he goes, it is argued, somebody else will take his place. The main thing for the US is to get all their bazookas fixed on the mounting drug trade here and blast it to kingdom come. Now that Ping Lacson is fair game for a turkey shoot, expect the Resign Lacson! or Expel Lacson! tumult to gather into an avalanche. The Senate will be hard put to cloister him because the Senate itself is on trial. The military has already decided to vomit Lacson out of its ranks.

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I cannot for the love of me understand why the Roman Church until now refuses to mount the hill, plant its flag, and wage war on narco-politics and also demand that Lacson be brought to book.

The answer is that the Church is still observing, "all this could be just politics," and besides God "will never abandon the Philippines." I don’t buy that at all. For lesser causes, like Cha-Cha, Jaime Cardinal Sin went to the Luneta barricades and reduced the dreams of then President Fidel Ramos to kindling wood. The Cardinal also played the lead role in People Power II, a patriarch touching the clouds and bidding fire and brimstone to descend on Joseph Estrada. And so they descended.

As for the drug issue possibly being just politics, I say it is the biggest moral issue to hit the Philippines in decades. Drugs eat into the very heart and soul of Philippine society, corrupting and poisoning our youth, our institutions, disrupting our economy, mortgaging our future. Everything drugs touch turns into rot. Every brush against narco-money becomes a boil besotted with blood and pus. Every step of a drug lord is a hobnailed boot dug into the same ground Jose Rizal trod.

The Church is supposed to lead, not follow. If it thinks President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is doing a very good job, and nothing should be done to rock the boat, then the Church is not reading the situation very well. The nation has a terminal case of the St. Vitus virus and GMA, for all her good intentions, cannot do anything about it. It will take a long time for the shadows to lift, the clouds to disperse, the fire-breathing monsters to recoil and retreat. We are not just riding the tiger. We are into its mouth.