"This should not be another political play."
"This should not be another political play."
In the chess world, a counter gambit is a strategy of the defending player to counter what seems like a bad or a “sacrificial” move of the attacking opponent. To some analysts, this seems to mirror the recent appointment signed by President Duterte designating Vice-President Robredo as the Co-Chairperson of the Inter-agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs, seen by some to be a clever politically motivated move masked to look like another shooting-from-the-hip action.
To quote the instructions of the presidential memorandum dated October 31, “The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, Philippine National Police, Dangerous Drugs Board and all other law enforcement agencies are hereby directed to extend their full assistance and cooperation to the Vice President to ensure the success of the Government’s efforts in the war against illegal drugs.”
Police data estimates 7,000 armed suspects resisting arrest have been killed but human rights groups refute these figures with their own count of over 22,000 deaths, labelling these as extra-judicial killings. These killings have prompted calls by United Nations special rapporteurs to issue a rare joint statement for an independent investigation which Malacañang has rejected outright as unacceptable meddling into the country’s internal affairs.
The President’s war on drugs is his principal campaign promise to save the country from becoming a “narco-state” or a situation wherein drug lords will have lethal influence over local and national government leaders to further expand illegal drugs networks victimizing millions of Filipino citizens. This message still resonates well with the population and is confirmed by national surveys showing very high support of over 80 percent.
Ironically, in a statement by President Duterte last March, he expressed his frustration stating that “things have worsened.” This even after the government’s continuing campaign which was launched in July 2016 soon after he assumed office. The Philippine National Police (PNP) confirmed this reporting that “large volume of illegal drugs” continue to be smuggled in by international drug syndicate. The PNP cited as examples the seizure of millions of pesos of “floating cocaine” bricks off the shores in different parts of the country, P1.1 billion of meth in a Muntinlupa raid and P1.8 billion worth of shabu at Manila’s port.
About a month ago, Vice President Robredo clarified statements in a radio interview saying that she was calling on government to assess if it is using the right strategies or to “tweak” the anti-illegal drug campaign, not to stop its operations.
Quoted in news reports, the Vice-President said, “We ask ourselves, ‘why is this still happening?’ The president has already made very serious threats to drug syndicates, to drug lords … and yet it’s still very prevalent, so obviously, it’s not working.”
This sparked a series of divergent reactions from the President’s and the VP’s camps leading to what some analysts see to be liking to a “King’s Gambit” or a bait, a political trap to set up Robredo for failure and political ruin. Early reactions from VP’s side were clearly suspicious and questioned the legal basis of the snap appointment. But in a surprise move, defying advice from allies and what many saw as uncharacteristic of Robredo, she accepted the challenge vowing to go after the bigwigs of illegal drug networks and the policemen in cahoots with seize and sell operations of billions worth of captured shabu.
Political analyst and Stratbase CEO/President Prof. Dindo Manhit in news interview said, “I think that the Vice-President knows that any public official elected and asked to serve a specific purpose cannot really step backward and reject an opportunity to serve the country in whatever way. It will be a challenge for her. You can hear negative comments already; that she is not capable or that she is weak. But at the end of the day she might surprise us given enough responsibility, power and resources that were given to her as the Co-Chair. Maybe she can approach the drug war in a different way but also take into consideration the different initiatives done by government already.”
As a citizen, there is no debate about the need to eradicate this scourge to Philippine society. I totally agree with focusing on the very source of all these illegal drugs and permanently dismantling the distribution networks of these drug syndicates. Success at this level will effectively close out the retail operations at the street level. If this happens, this will be good for all of us and will be a model that we can be proud of.
This should not be another political play for the next presidency. It is to the nation’s interest that this becomes a successful “tweak” that would do justice for the thousands of lives that have fallen in this drug war.