Taulava, Peña: Test cases for PDEA

Its main author, Rep. Antonio Cuenco, crows that the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 is one of the world’s toughest. It wills death, plus fine of P500,000 to P10 million, for mere possession of 500 grams of marijuana, 50 of shabu, 10 of opium, cocaine, heroin or ecstasy. Life terms await those caught with 300 but less than 500 grams of marijuana, 10 but less than 50 of shabu, or five but less than ten of the rest.

It’s even harsher on pushers: life term or death, plus P500,000 to P10 million, for making or selling whatever amount of drugs. This includes a stick alone of marijuana, or a piso-piso one-tenth gram sachet of shabu that sells for P100. The law is so comprehensive it penalizes police coddlers of drug lords (20 years to life) and planters of evidence (death). It even sets a deadline for law enforcers to submit confiscated drugs for forensic test (24 hours).

To discourage drug use and monitor users, the law further mandates drug tests on applicants of driver or gun licenses, candidates for elective or appointive government positions, and persons charged with offenses that fetch a minimum prison term of six years. Policemen and soldiers must take the test each year. Random tests will be done on high school and college students, and officers and employees of private or public offices. The last item includes the entertainment circuit that earned notoriety for narcotics, and professional athletes who serve as youth role models.

As with any law, however, the burden is in enforcement.

Weeks ago Professional Basketball Association players Asi Taulava and Dorian Peña tested positive for marijuana. In the ensuing uproar, the Games and Amusement Board recommended a two-game suspension. PBA managers immediately complied. By Sunday Taulava and Peña were playing again.

"But that’s only an administrative sanction," cries Dr. Carlito Cubelo of nongovernment organization Drug Abuse Warning Network. The new antidrug law has its own prescription for persons who test positive in drug tests: minimum six months of rehabilitation in a licensed center if the first time, longer if the second or more times.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, however, seems reluctant to touch the celebrated case. PDEA assistant director Baltazar Balangauan says the new agency has yet to receive the test results from the GAB and PBA. Cuenco maintains, however, that PDEA must not merely wait for the submission, but start investigating based on open information published in sports pages for many weeks.

If the PDEA strictly enforces the new law, it could give Taulava and Peña two choices for the rehab: government clinics in which the state pays P6,000 a month for each patient, or private ones in which they would pay at least P25,000 a month. Whatever, they must stay there for the duration.

The law devotes an entire chapter on the need for drug education. It requires the inclusion of drug abuse in the elementary school curriculum, along with continuing public information. The urgency is highlighted by recent findings that more and more youths aged 15 to 24 are trying out – and getting hooked on – liquor, cigarettes and narcotics. Separate findings show that one out of every hundred applicants for drivers’ licenses test positive for drugs.

Statistics culled by PDEA from the defunct PNP-Narcotics Group put the number of drug-dependents at 1.8 million, mostly on shabu. The menace is so widespread it affects every Filipino family. In any reunion of 45 cousins, aunts and uncles, there’s bound to be one addict. Another 1.3 million are occasional users. Given a ratio of one pusher for every 10 users, there must be 310,000 pushers nationwide. Some use minors as couriers and infants as props. A female pusher in Frisco, Quezon City, was arrested cradling a baby with a dozen piso-piso sachets worth P1,200 in the diaper. She confessed to a 50-percent profit; the P600 she intended to make for an afternoon’s work would have been thrice her usual pay as laundrywoman.

"Those figures are old," Cuenco laments. "Recent studies show that there could be as many as 4.5 million habitual shabu users, plus the same number of curiosity-seeking occasional users."

Shabu, a synthetic drug invented by a Japanese chemist in the 1930s, is particularly addictive, for it reacts with dopamine, the natural substance in the human body responsible for craving. One out of every four humans has higher dopamine levels than the rest. That one person can be instantly addicted to shabu on the first curiosity try.

Drug lords bank on shabu’s potency for their annual revenue of $5 billion, or P270 billion. Balangauan says the PDEA presently is building strong cases against 11 identified international and 215 local syndicates. Of the 298 foreigners arrested last year for drug dealing and mixing, 206 were Chinese. In at least three instances, judges released the suspects despite dozens of kilos of shabu confiscated from their laboratories. In other cases, prosecutors either recommended bail and lighter charges that allowed the suspects to flee the country, and policemen-witnesses simply lost the evidence or shunned the court trials. Such setbacks show how drug money works, or how ignorant police and justice officials are about the law. In most cases, the wheels of justice grind ever so slowly. Although caught red-handed transporting 500 kilos of shabu in July, only last week was Panulukan, Quezon, Mayor Ronnie Mitra arraigned.

If the public needs drug education, so do government officials. PDEA asked Congress for a P2-billion budget for law enforcement and information kits this year. Legislators granted only P500 million, and budget bureaucrats have released only P300 million – hardly enough for the six-month rehab of 8,000 addicts, let alone 1.8 million.

Going by the exchange of Cuenco and Balangauan about Taulava and Peña, it would seem that PDEA managers too need to reread the law and their duties. The players serve as role models. If they are exempted from compulsory rehab, what message will it give to the youth?

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