A narcopolitician can be president

Sometime in 1988, while boning up on the Philippines for a state visit, President Virgilio Barco of Colombia noted three similarities with the two countries. First, their Spanish colonial heritage. Second, their militarist putsches and communist insurgencies. Third, and most ominous, their growing drug problem.

Barco never was able to visit Manila, having been stricken ill in Korea on his way here. But his forecast about the worsening drug menace came true. Soon after his term, narcotrade in Colombia grew to a point that drug cartels were putting up candidates for local and national posts. Their presidential bet, Ernesto Samper, won in the early ’90s. Knowing his dark links, parliament at first refused to confirm his victory. But the cartels paid off enough ministers to declare him winner.

Foreign trade and investment sank. Nobody wanted to deal with a country led by a narcopolitician. Kidnappings, massacres and executions became rampant as Colombia fell into anarchy. Neighbor-countries were infected. Bolivia and Peru became transhipment routes for cocaine. Ecuador was worse, allowing Colombian narcotraffickers eventually to plant coca within its borders. It elected a president (Bucharam) who was a womanizer, drunkard and gambler. Congress ousted him, and a woman vice president rose to power. But the people did not stay vigilant. Years later they elected another president (Muhuad) who, worse, was a narco-distributor.

The lesson of vigilance should not be lost on Filipinos. If we don’t stay alert, we risk falling into narcoterrorism like Latin America. If we don’t watch out, we too may elect a narcopolitician for president.

Narcopolitics is already here – and fast advancing. Like in Latin America ten years ago, a narcopolitician is aspiring for the highest office in our land.

Time was when gambling lords would put up local candidates to expand their influence beyond corrupt policemen, fiscals and judges. From their positions of power, the dummies used influence to protect the illicit interests of vice lords. Unsatisfied, they went for the big-time. The jueteng exposés of late 2000, which led to the first-ever impeachment of a Filipino President, showed that the payola had reached the innermost halls of Malacañang no less.

It’s like the Mafia diversifying from bookmaking to narcotrading. Aping jueteng operators, drug lords too started bankrolling dummies for local posts. Several such candidates reportedly won in 1998 and 2001 in Northern Mindanao, Central Visayas and Southern Tagalog. From their positions of power, they too employed influence not only to thwart lawmen, but also to serve as narcocouriers. We all know the story of that small-town but big-time mayor in Quezon.

Going by testimonies in the Senate in 2001, it is not far-fetched that the legislature no less already has been infiltrated by narcotraffickers. Civic and religious leaders lament that in the last barangay election, drug gangs in their locales were able to make large numbers of surrogates win. They analyze this to mean that moneyed narcosyndicates will use the elected surrogates as ward leaders for the bigger surrogate they will put up for the Presidency.

Thus, strategic planners in the AFP, PNP and Malacañang now view the scourge of drugs as one of the biggest threats to national security – next only to, if not as grave as, the communist rebellion, the Moro secession, and Islamist terrorism.

Narcosyndicates see a compelling reason to gun for the Presidency. They need to protect and expand the illegal trade. There are presently 1.8 million addicts and 3.5 million occasional users, mostly of shabu. If the 1.8 million shabu addicts each buy P100-sachets ten days in a month, that’s P21.6 billion a year. If the 3.5 million occasional users each buy P100-sachets once a month, that’s another P4.2 billion. Total volume: P25.8 billion a year, more than the budget of the PNP or AFP. The profit margin is one-third for the narcosyndicates. Another third goes to the estimated 150,000 street pushers.

With legions of poor to victimize, narcosyndicates have potential for expansion. Shabu, the synthetic methamphetamine hydrochloride invented by a Japanese chemist in the ’30s, is extremely addictive. It can even be instantly addictive. Medical findings show that one out of four humans normally has a higher level of dopamine in the body than others. Dopamine is the substance responsible for craving – like the feeling of pangangasim one gets upon seeing a plate of manggang hilaw. If that one out of four makes the mistake of taking shabu, he’d be instantly addicted.

It is said that a presidential candidate would need P2 billion to mount a credible campaign. That’s a drop in the bucket of a narcopolitician running for the position. He could easily win. If that happens, as it did in Latin America, narcopolitics will destroy our institutions – the family, the law, our moral fiber. We could turn into a nation of dopes and weaklings – unable to work, study or pray, yet hopelessly in love with a toxic drug.

The evidence is clear: 2004 will be the year that a narcopolitician will aim for Malacañang. But government’s fight is aimed at narcosyndicates, not at their candidate. With a Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act that imposes stiff jail terms for mere possession of narcotics, much more for distribution, government has notched several victories in recent months with the busting of almost a dozen shabu laboratories.

Narcosyndicates are fighting back. Better funded than government, they can abuse the very institutions of society to stay in business: the media for image-building, the military for a coup d’etat, the police for a crime wave, the judiciary for legal maneuvers, the legislature for sanctuary, and eventually Malacañang for complete control.

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