Fred Lim as anti-drug gangbuster? You bet!

The bad news is that former Interior Secretary and ex-Mayor of Manila Fred Lim – who needs no introduction as a two-fisted crime-buster – declined the job of being the Nation’s Anti-Drug Czar when he was "sounded out" by Malacañang last Friday.

Yesterday Undersecretary Anselmo S. Avenido, Jr., the Director General of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), went to see Lim to urge the former National Bureau of Investigation director (one of Fred’s other posts in a lifetime career of law enforcement) to reconsider and accept the proffered role of heading a new super-Task Force to combat the escalating drug menace.

Alikabok, my seldom-wrong Deep Throat in Malacañang, was the one who tipped me off about the meeting between Executive Secretary Bert Romulo and Lim last weekend. A chronic osisero, Alikabok overheard Lim demurring because he wasn’t sure he would get the backing of the government all the way in the fight against the drug syndicates, which could never operate with such impunity unless they had extremely powerful padrinos and protectors in high places.

I don’t think the door has been closed entirely, which is why I think the President – and I mean President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo – should talk to Lim directly and pledge him the kind of support he needs to succeed in an almost impossible battle. I’m not exaggerating about the dimensions of the battlefield: The fact alone that the PDEA claims to have seized P5.3 BILLION worth of illegal drugs indicates that perhaps ten or more times that amount of dangerous drugs managed to get on our streets or be "exported" abroad without being detected.

To date, according to the PDEA’s own report, the authorities have "neutralized" (their favorite term) one transnational and 31 local drug syndicates, as well as closed down four factories producing methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu. This is not even a dent, when there’s a US report that the illegal industry earns more than $5 billion (more than P270 BILLION in the Philippines)!

We’re right to be worried about the SARS threat, although we’ve had only two certified SARS deaths, and four cases of patients contracting the deadly "atypical pneumonia" virus. In China alone, in sharp contrast, there were eight new SARS deaths in Beijing yesterday, bringing the total of people killed by SARS there to 209, with an additional 503 persons being "quarantined" in the Chinese capital yesterday.

On the other hand, the clear and present danger to our people comes not from SARS but from drug-addiction. The National Household Survey on the Nature and Extent of Drug Abuse in the Philippines, conducted by the Dangerous Drugs Board in 1999, came out with the estimate of 1.8 million regular users in this country, plus 1.6 million "occasional users". Surely, those ugly statistics have jumped higher in the intervening year.

The PDEA, in its year-end report, warned directly that "drug abuse has now affected the whole nation".

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GMA probably decided to send feelers to Lim through Bert Romulo since she has grown very sensitive recently to rebuff. I believe this is a time for candor, not hesitation. She needs a tough guy like Fred "Dirty Harry" Lim, not the usual cordon sanitaire of Palace courtiers, flatterers, wimps, and social climbers who surround her and hem her in with bad advice, and deter her from resolute action.

All the Chief Executive has to do to unleash Lim against the arrogant drug lords and their godfathers – some of whom come to sup at the Presidential table, mind you – is to personally promise him that he will be allowed to pick his own team. What destroys any anti-drug effort or drive against narcotics is the fact that so many policemen and lawyers are foisted on the PDEA itself and other task forces by "interested" parties – some of them eager to plant "moles" or spies in the anti-drug organization. It’s no surprise that, aside from a few headline-grabbing but, in the end, inutile "successes", the predators – many of them illegal Chinese, incidentally – usually managed to get away.

If you’ll recall, early last March the 2002 report on international narcotics control strategy prepared by the US State Department tagged the Philippines as one of the main transshipment points of illegal drugs to Japan, Korea, Australia, the United States, and the nearby US territories of Guam and Saipan.

The top-earner for the drug syndicates is, of course, shabu. However, a second bestseller has been marijuana (generating some $900 million a year). This loco weed is cultivated in remote areas of Northern Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao.

What’s most worrisome of all was the information that Ecstasy, an inhibition-smashing, brain-rotting drug produced in the Netherlands, was also being imported in huge shipments into the Philippines for local use, generating $50 million annually for the narcotics kings! Sanamagan, there are even entire neighborhoods (I won’t mention Libis) which some insiders claim to be "Ecstasy Row".

How can GMA not be concerned about this problem? My advice, echoing that of our colleague TeddyMan Benigno in his column, All-out war on drugs, last April 25, is for the President to get Fred Lim – and get him fast.

Sure, we must be alert and resolutely combat the SARS threat. But the drug octopus, not the SARS virus, is what is already choking us to death.

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Look at Thailand.

There are howls, of course, about police "murders" and violations of "human rights", but Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s crusade to rid his country of drugs "within three months" is working.

Are death squads in operation there? There is talk that rogue policemen, heavily involved in the drugs trade, have been silencing certain traffickers since their own involvement might be exposed.

Thaksin and the cops have, for their part, been insisting that the drug traffickers are the ones shooting down each other in bitter rivalries or quarrels over turf. The violent "situation" has had a salutary effect, it must be said. Almost 100,000 individuals have turned themselves in to the police, promising to lead straight lives from now on and give up their "life of immorality".

Were these people reformed or simply scared out of their wits? Whatever their motives for "surrendering" those footsoldiers of the drug syndicates have been "neutralized". After fingerprinting, identification, and a scolding, their effectiveness as drug-runners and pushers is now nil.

Grandes males, grandes remedios. That’s what we need in our own fight. When Fred Lim was mayor of Manila, his unorthodox and two-fisted tactics sent the drug-pushers running for their . . . well, lives. He can do this again.

However, he won’t accept a cosmetic position. GMA must trust him, and give him her full support. First, he must be allowed to handpick his own team, with no interference from outside, and nobody inserted into the A-Team by anybody else. (In our anti-narcotics task forces, previously, most of the lawmen involved were TDY, or merely on "temporary duty", so their loyalty was really to their mother units and their former commanders. Lim must have the unblinking loyalty and trust of the men and women in the contemplated Task Force).

He must, like Elliot Ness did in Chicago, have an organization of "Untouchables" – for the syndicates, thus far, have been able to "touch" almost everybody.

This is the only way. What do you say, GMA?

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The 76-page decision of the Supreme Court in the Philippine International Air Terminals Co., Inc. (Piatco) case penned by Justice Reynato S. Puno and the 98-page separate concurring opinion of Justice Artemio V. Panganiban are detailed in their narration of the facts and well-grounded in jurisprudence and law.

The Puno ponencia has the concurrence of Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr. and eight Associate Justices, led by Justice Art Panganiban who wrote a separate concurring opinion longer than the decision. Three members of the Court dissented, saying that the Court is without jurisdiction to hear the case, while one took no part or inhibited himself. Thus, the legal victory of the petitioners over the respondents is clear and overwhelming.

Of course, those who disagree with the ruling are free to criticize and assail it, but not in the disrespectful language used by former Solicitor General Frank Chavez, who should know better describing the adverse ruling as "legalized highway robbery".

"Legalized highway robbery," I submit, might be the appropriate term if Piatco had won despite all the "outright violations of law, public policy and the Constitution" that, according to Justice Panganiban, the five contracts for the construction and operation of NAIA Terminal III are replete with.

In concluding his well-written decision, Justice Puno said: "In sum, this Court rules that in view of the absence of the requisite financial capacity of the Paircargo Consortium, predecessor of Piatco, the award by the PBAC of the contract for the construction, operation and maintenance of the NAIA IPT III is null and void. Considering further that the 1997 Concession Agreement contains material and substantial amendments, which amendments had the effect of converting the 1997 Concession Agreement into an entirely different agreement from the contract bidded upon, the 1997 Concession Agreement is similarly null and void for being contrary to public policy. The provisions under Sections 4.04(b) and (c) in relation to Section 1.06 of the 1997 Concession Agreement and Section 4.04(c) in relation to Section 1.06 of the ARCA, which constitutes a direct government guarantee expressly prohibited by, among others, the BOT Law and its Implementing Rules and Regulations are also null and void. The supplements, being accessory contracts to the ARCA, are likewise null and void."

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For his part Justice Panganiban described the bidding and award process in the Epilogue of his separate concurring opinion as "riddled with irregularities galore and blatant violations of law and public policy, far too many to ignore".

He added that, "ultimately, though, it would be tantamount to an outrageous, grievous and unforgivable mutilation of public policy and an insult to ourselves if we opt to keep in place a contract – any contract – for to do so would assume that we agree to having Piatco continue as the concessionaire for Terminal III."

Commenting on the Piatco High Court ruling yesterday morning in his radio program, former Senator and Ambassador Ernie Maceda said that after the Supreme Court decision declared that the five contracts are replete with "outright violations of law, public policy and the Constitution", all those behind and responsible for these violations of the law, particularly the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, should be prosecuted by Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo.

He’s right. The Ombudsman must go – get ’em.