LOOKING THE OTHER WAY

Sketches

You have to hand it to the folks who ran that shabu tiangge or flea
market in Pasig. They were savvy entrepreneurs, they had a sense of
humor, and they knew whose palms to grease.

Paying protection money was the only way that sort of enterprise could
have thrived unmolested for a year, within spitting distance of the
Pasig City Hall and the headquarters of the Eastern Police District.

One police officer was reported to have explained that the illegal
activity thrived because cops are generally reluctant to go into
Muslim enclaves.

There is no logic behind that explanation. No one is above the law,
and all Filipinos regardless of religion need to have their
communities protected by the government from lawless elements. If cops
are scared to conduct regular patrols in a predominantly Muslim area,
they should resign from the Philippine National Police (PNP). There is
no room for cowardice in the police force.

Neither is there any excuse for laziness, stupidity or negligence, if
those are the reasons to be cited by Pasig police officers for their
failure to detect the drug dens in the compound called Mapayapa (peaceful).

More plausible than stupidity or negligence in this case, however, is
tolerance of an illegal activity. The drug tiangge, with a carinderia
called "shabu-shabu," thrived because certain Pasig police and local
government authorities looked the other way in exchange for hush
money. * * * At least other PNP units were on the job. Last week,
anti-narcotics agents from Camp Crame raided the Mapayapa compound,
confiscated shabu and drug paraphernalia and rounded up hundreds of
suspects.

How did that operation survive for a year? We have a barangay system
precisely to deal with drug problems and facilitate the delivery of
basic services at the community level. Barangay officials are being
paid by Juan de la Cruz to keep close tabs on matters such as garbage
disposal and the maintenance of peace and order in their respective
communities. In carrying out their tasks, barangay officials
coordinate with the local police and City Hall.

There is no way activities such as illegal gambling, illegal vending,
and drug dealing on the scale of the one in Mapayapa can thrive
without the knowledge of barangay officials and local cops. Even if
local government and police officers deny directly coddling drug
dealers, failure to report an illegal activity or do something about
it is an act of omission that must not go unpunished.

Jueteng keeps coming back despite repeated crackdowns because there
are public officials who cannot resist the lure of gambling payoffs.
The same is true for illegal vending. If cops and local government
officials did their jobs, you won't find vendors spilling into main
thoroughfares or taking over areas that are supposed to serve as
terminals for public utility vehicles.

Even Metro Manila's traffic mess can be blamed on corrupt traffic
enforcers, who look the other way when buses or jeepneys occupy all
but one lane of a busy thoroughfare while waiting for passengers. You
can see this clearly in certain spots along EDSA and in front of the
Redemptorist Church in Baclaran, Paranaque.

If authorities can look the other way when it comes to traffic, which
inconveniences thousands of motorists throughout the week, they can
certainly look the other way when it comes to a shabu tiangge.
Everyone - customer and drug dealer alike - must look happy in those
drug dens. If no one is complaining, why bother peaceful Mapayapa? * *
* Camp Crame's Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force had
other ideas and raided the compound housing 64 shanties in Barangay
Sto. Tomas last Friday. Over 300 people were rounded up, including
women and 56 minors who were turned over to the Department of Social
Welfare and Development.

You wonder how the Pasig police and barangay officials could have
missed the special tiangge. No one was emerging from the compound,
which charged a minimal entrance fee, clutching clothes from China or
Louis Vuitton and Juicy Couture knockoffs. There were no foreigners
asking around about South Sea pearls.

Yesterday task force officials said they were looking into reports
that three Pasig cops were often seen in the compound. Several
barangay officials led by captain Jesus Viray are also wanted for
questioning.

Drug trafficking can be a capital offense, and any police or local
government official found coddling drug dealers should face similarly
heavy punishment.

Many organized criminal activities in this country including illegal
gambling, carjacking and smuggling thrive because of protection from
those tasked to enforce the law and keep the public safe.

At the height of the Abu Sayyaf kidnapping spree in Mindanao, local
government and military officials in the affected provinces as well as
at least one government negotiator from Manila were widely suspected
to be in cahoots with bandit leaders particularly the late, unlamented
Ghalib Andang, a.k.a. Commander Robot. * * * At least the Mapayapa
raid yielded suspects, although the supposed principal operator is
said to have escaped through some backdoor. Now why would a raiding
team move in without first surrounding the entire shantytown, which
sits on just 600 square meters of land? For now we're willing to
credit this to usual police sloppiness. But suspicions of police
collusion keep bubbling up in every drug raid.

Surely you have noticed that most raids on shabu laboratories rarely
net the operators themselves. The only ones who are not notified about
an impending raid and who get caught are the poor janitors. Everyone
else gets away, with the coddler making money from the priceless tip-off.

Even when the operator is identified, he is rarely caught. The rare
times that a drug trafficker is caught, he manages to waltz out of
jail, even from maximum-security detention at PNP headquarters at Camp
Crame.

It's not just police and local government officials who are blinded by
drug money. Even judges have come under fire for questionable
acquittals and grants of bail to accused drug dealers. Foreign drug
suspects seem to be particularly adept at knowing whose palms to
grease. Once out on bail, they can quickly leave the country, courtesy
of Bureau of Immigration personnel.

The illegal drug trade is a lucrative one, and drug money can be
irresistible. Unless those behind the Pasig drug dens are apprehended
and quickly punished, the Mapayapa shabu tiangge could be just the
start of a nationwide trend.