MORE DRUG SUPERMARTS FOUND IN QUEZON CITY AND CALOOCAN SLUM WARRENS

By The Way By

Here we are bragging about our war against terrorism, when we can't
even fight a war against the expanding tentacles of our homegrown drug
menace. The February 10 sweep by the Anti-Illegal Drugs Special
Operations Task Force (AIDSOTF) led by Police Director Marcelo Ele at
Sitio Mapayapa - so ironically named - in Barangay Sto. Tomas, Pasig
City, may have forced open a can of worms, but it's only one of the
worm-infested centers of drug-trafficking.

More super-tiangges exist in Quezon City and Caloocan, it was
intimated to this writer yesterday - and are on the verge of being
scooped up. The modus operandi of the drug kings is to concentrate
their marketing activities deep inside slum areas so that raiding
lawmen have to push their way through narrow alleys and mazes to get
to the heart of each operation - which has "spy" cameras and other
early-warning systems in place. The scandal is that the neighborhood
cops are possibly on the take, or actual protectors of the shabu
tiangges - which have as their godfathers, as well, some powerful
local officials.

How could Pasig's ranking officials not have known about the Pasig
complex so recently raided? It was going full blast literally behind
City Hall - and had been operating there for more than two years
according to the informant who tipped off the AIDSOTF. The raid bagged
319 persons (216 males, 44 females and 59 minors). Some of the
"customers" caught were not poor - two of them were sons of very rich
families. Urine samples and other drug tests have been conducted on
most of the suspected "users," but even the cops in the area are being
tested, too. The results may be interesting.

The seven cops in Police Community Precinct 20 headed by Police
Inspector Salvador dela Cruz, as well as the six personnel of the
Pasig Drug Enforcement Unit (DEU) there, and the other six DEU agents
of the Eastern Police District itself have been relieved - and have
had to undergo drug testing.

The discouraging factor is that the shabu peddled so insolently in the
super-tiangge was locally "manufactured," not imported from mainland
China or elsewhere - meaning that shabu is now conveniently being
mass-produced here, the local product "good" enough to compete with
the smuggled imports. Marijuana, too, was available in the drug
emporium busted in Pasig.

President GMA once again is vowing "all-out" war on the illegal drug
trade, particularly in Metro Manila, pledging that no politicians or
law enforcers involved in this destructive racket will be spared. She
must not be surprised if some of the politicians who ritually go to
Malacanang are uncovered to be among the drug coddlers.

The druglords have the money, the clout, and the arrogance to buy
their way into the corridors of power - or destroy those who threaten
them. If there is, at last, going to be a "war" on them it must be
total war.

Remember the notorious shabu-mass-producer in Pampanga? He was caught
with his "factory" in full operation, but his pricey lawyers, combined
with the ..er, "clumsy" case presented by the police and the
prosecutors, got him off the hook.

Sus, it's long been the buzz on the street, that shabu is even being
manufactured (perhaps for "home" use) inside the penitentiary in
Muntinlupa. With apologies to the late Elvis Presley, we may have our
own version here of "Jailhouse Rock."