An uncivil war among the good guys

You see? No sooner had the idea of a tough team of "Untouchables" headed by two-fisted ex-mayor and gang-buster Fred Lim been broached than everybody’s saying he's the "boss" in the anti-drug fight, neither Lim nor Bobby Barbers. The STAR was absolutely correct in bannering its story yesterday, "Turf War, Not Drug War".

Sanamagan. The lawmen have begun shooting at each other. It makes you cry – in frustration. The drug lords are laughing all the way to the bank and to their money-laundering conduits.

Senate President Frank Drilon groused that Barbers can’t be a senator and anti-drug "czar" at the same time. He’s right, of course. But that should have been clear from the start. That’s what the Constitution which everybody’s always trying to amend means about "separation of powers".

Anyway, when Barbers came to have breakfast with us yesterday at the Tuesday Club, he merrily greeted me with the exclamation: I’m CZARs-free! He acknowledged his role would be merely oversight and advisory.

Fred Lim came, too. He smiled and said he would inform Barbers and Undersecretary (General-retired) Anselmo Avenido Jr., director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), of every action under the label of work-in-progress. Nonetheless, as we predicted in this corner, Avenido stiffly declared yesterday he has yet to receive a copy of Lim’s appointment as Presidential Adviser on Illegal Drugs. Avenido reiterated his PDEA is still in charge. What’s going to be Fred’s job, he asked: "Adviser?"

Our friend, PNP General Egay Aglipay, who heads anti-narcotics, was more polite. On television three days ago, he said he hoped they could coordinate, but he still didn’t understand what the new boys on the block would be doing.

The PNP Chief, Police Director General Hermogenes "Jun" Ebdane, called on the youth to "be our eyes and ears against crime and illegal drugs".

As for the President, she had to state that nobody’s going to be "Czar", but everybody should work together. Sus, Ma’am. The war has begun already – not against the drug menace, but among those supposed to be fighting the drug menace.

It’s the crab mentality, the amor propio syndrome, and the yabang complex, all rolled into one. (In Ilocano, we call it lastog.)

Unless we get our act together, the drug death-dealers will have the last laugh. Even in our statistics, we can’t seem to get it right. Some say the drug racket makes P30 billion yearly. Others claim it makes P277 billion annually. Susmariosep, the latter figure is more than half the national budget!

Madam President: Make up your mind. Don’t try to play the role of Mary Mediatrix of All Graces. Give ONE DRUG-BUSTER the authority to go after the evil syndicates. Otherwise, the so-called "good guys" will be stumbling all over each other’s egos.

And the rats will get away, fat, sassy, and fancy-free.

* * *

The visit of India’s Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to Beijing, and the "declaration" (still unspelled out) which he signed with China’s Premier Wen Jiabao, are more significant than they appear. Vajpayee’s visit is the first time any Prime Minister of India (population 1 billion) has made to China (population 1.3 billion) since the two countries fought over Ladakh in the Chip Chap valley of the Aksai Chin of the Himalayas way back in October 1962.

This indicates that the world’s two most populous nations are making peace with each other. What worries me, of course, is that a deal may be struck with the Chinese who hate the Dalai Lama, the 14th in his line, who fled Tibet in 1959 when the Chinese "invaded" and consolidated their possession of that sky-high Buddhist theocracy, a kingdom called the "Roof of the World", and incorporated its three million shepherds, peasants and monks into the People’s Republic of China. Since he fled, the revered Dalai Lama, whom I’ve had long discussions with twice – the first time when we were together at the Oxford Conference in May 1988, along with 150 religious and philosophical leaders, and "saints" (including Mother Teresa) while I represented the sinners. More recently we met again in New Delhi, India, two years ago when he spoke to our International Press Institute (IPI) World Congress there.

India has been host to the Dalai Lama in exile since his leaving Tibet (to Beijing’s consternation). While the Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso is his original name) goes around the world preaching "peace, understanding and love" and calling for freedom for the Tibetans, his home base has been Darjeeling, India, at the base of his beloved Himalayas.

Will the Indians now recognizing China’s hold on Tibet "sell out" Tenzin Gyatso and the 100,000 Tibetans living in exile inside their country?

Trade between the two countries now stands at $10 billion a year and could triple or quadruple after a deal is struck. Tempting, di ba?

* * *

I remember interviewing the late, great Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru shortly after the clash between Chinese and Indian troops in the mountains of Ladakh. The Indians have always maintained the Chinese "invaded" their positions in Ladakh. The Chinese claimed the opposite. It was the Indians, they declared, who had attacked their positions.

It was on October 9, 1962 that the big battle really began. The better-equipped Chinese (the Indians, in the bitter and freezing cold were wearing summer uniforms, would you believe?) had battered the Indian Army completely. By November 21, 1962, when the Chinese announced a unilateral ceasefire and withdrawal, pulling their troops 20 miles behind the so-called McMahon Line in the eastern mountains, India had lost 1,383 dead, plus 1,696 missing. Some 3,105 Indians had been captured. The Chinese lost far less, although they released no official figures. (Perhaps 600 or so.)

Early in 1963, I think it was May, a Cabinet minister we knew said he could arrange a meeting with Nehru in his official residence at Tin Murti in Delhi. He told me that Nehru, who had for years been preaching "peaceful existence" and Hindi-Chini bhai-bhai (The Indians and Chinese are Brothers) had been totally shocked by what he considered Chinese "betrayal".

"For God’s sake," my friend, the Cabinet member exclaimed, "talk about the weather, or some other stuff and nonsense, don’t talk to Nehru about politics."

When we arrived at Tin Murti, it was Indira Gandhi (his daughter, who was acting as his secretary) who let us in. Nehru was handsome in his, well, Nehru jacket and rumpled jodhpurs, but already the pallor of death was visible on his lined face.

He must have thought me an utter fool, because I painfully followed my Cabinet minister’s injunction and admired the flowers and garden, quite clearly seen through the windows of his sunny library, and frittered ten minutes away in other small talk. Finally, in exasperation, Nehru blurted out: "Aren’t you going to ask me about Ladakh?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Prime Minister, I’m burning to ask about Ladakh!" I said. That got him started, and he let it all out. "I’ve learned a bitter lesson", he concluded, "that in order to co-exist, one must first be strong!"

Not long afterwards, he was gone. Nehru never got over his outrage at his foreign policy having been so cruelly repudiated (he believed) and his Chinese bosom "friends" having doublecrossed and humiliated him and his country. He suffered a stroke in January 1964 and expired on May 25, 1964, almost a year to the day that I had interviewed him.

Indira, who had earlier come across to me as being rather mousy (how wrong I was!), became Prime Minister herself after one of her father’s successors, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, had a heart attack and died in January 1966, just after signing a "permanent ceasefire" agreement with Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan in Tashkent (brokered by the Soviets). Those Indian Prime Ministers seem to have a propensity for strokes and heart attacks. (Vajpayee had one few months ago – but survived.)

In any event, Indira became one of the country’s most formidable and forceful leaders and a Warrior Queen. She was murdered on October 31, 1984, in the garden of her own official bungalow in New Delhi by two of her own Sikh guards. (The Sikhs had resented the army attack on their Golden Temple in Amritsar in the Punjab, their holy or holies, and the blasting into the compound with tanks – 493 Sikh militants and civilians and 83 Indian soliders had died in the clash.)

Again, this journalist covered the election campaign of Indira’s son Rajiv Gandhi, who had succeeded his dead mother. Radjiv was handsome, charming, intelligent and decent. But he made some rather bad decisions. He sent, for instance, 65,000 Indian troops to meddle in the Tamil revolt in neighboring Sri Lanka and lay siege to Jafna. In March 1991, a suicide-bomber, a Tamil woman, walked up to Rajiv while he was campaigning in Southern India and blew herself – and him – up.

The Gandhis seem to be born to "power" in India, but doomed to continuing tragedy.

* * *

I got the other side of the story in China that same 1964 when I led, as chairman of the group, a delegation of Filipino journalists to the People’s Republic. (The Philippines recognized Taiwan at the time, and prohibited travel to "forbidden" Communist countries like Red China – so our passports were confiscated by the government upon our return.)

We spent a few weeks in China, and the trip culminated in a two and a half hour meeting with the late Premier Zhou Enlai in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. He was one of the most remarkable men I ever met. But that’s not my story for today.

What was interesting is that we first went to Shenyang (Mukden) in the north, in Manchuria. The mayor, our host, treated us to a big party in which the obvious aim was to out-toast us in that potent brew called mao-tai. My delegates, at my admonition, refused to give an inch and battled them toast for toast. It was "wan wan suwe" and "kampei" everything from eternal Fil-Chinese friendship to mashed potatoes! We succeeded in drinking most of our "antagonists" under the table.

However, that was just for starters. We were then marched over to a big theater, where 1,000 people in the stalls gave us a standing ovation, as we blearily staggered into the hall. Then we were subjected to two movies.

One was how China had "liberated" Tibet and freed the oppressed Tibetans from the inhuman despotism of the monks and the tortures practiced on them by the Lamas! The second was how, when the Indians treacherously attacked Chinese positions in Ladakh, the People’s Liberation Army had defeated the Indian troops, then treated the captured Indians tenderly.

They had given them winter clothing because the poor Indians were dying of cold, fed them well, been so kind to them, that when the time came for the Indians to be released, many of the prisoners didn’t want to go, but hugged and embraced their captors and jailers profusely!

I suppose propaganda is propaganda, in whatever country.

When the lights came on, I found myself alone in the pew of honorees. My Pinoy fellow journalists had stumbled off in the darkness and somehow found their way home to the old Yamato, our Japanese-built hotel. There I saw them in various stages of collapse (from mao-tai overdose). One had emptied his very insides into the bathtub. Thus, often enough, is the price of "victory".

After our passports were confiscated by Immigration and Customs upon our return to Manila, I contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs. I inquired, on behalf of my group: "Does this mean we will henceforth be banned from foreign travel?"

"Not at all," the DFA official in charge cheerily replied. "Just apply for a new passport!"

Only in the Philippines, I guess.