Revisiting Agot Isidro

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BY HERBERT VEGO
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ACTRESS Agot Isidro, everybody remembers, went viral in the early days of the Rodrigo Duterte presidency when she labeled him “psychopath.” That one viral word has since kept her in trouble with Duterte fanatics.

Last June 17, for instance, Agot “landed” in a pro-Duterte website that falsely reported her as having checked-in at Boracay Hotel Groove in Boracay but was forced out by the hotel management after an “altercation with someone while loitering at the beach near the hotel.”

If the motive of the fake news was to scare Agot and anybody else “irreverent” to the President, it only succeeded in rekindling her “forgotten” description of the President’s mental health because of contradictions in his statements, which are already too familiar to be denied.

Remember that in the wake of public outrage over the death of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos in the hands of three Caloocan City cops, he said, “I saw the tapes on TV and I agreed that there should be an investigation. Should the investigation point to liabilities by one, two, or all, there will be a prosecution and they have to go to jail if convicted. That I can assure you.”

That could not complement one he had said earlier before the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) on the massive police raid that killed 32 suspected drug pushers in Bulacan: “Maganda ‘yun. Makapatay lang tayo ng mga another 32 everyday, then maybe we can reduce what ails this country.”

To that, the Commission on Human Rights reminded the President that as a lawyer, he should not have uttered words that trampled Section 1 of Article III (the Bill of Rights): “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied the equal protection of the laws.”

The Hong Kong-based Asia Sentinel, in its Aug. 22 article “Duterte, the Philippines and a Psychopathic Reign of Terror,” tersely observed:

“The spate of killings illustrates presidential madness. It is time for the Philippines to face up to the fact that its president, Rodrigo Duterte, is a psychopath drunk on killing.  What lies behind this lethal drug campaign, one asks? The first clue may be that Duterte himself was – and maybe still is – a drug user. He has admitted to past over-prescription use of the drug fentanyl, an opioid far stronger and more addictive than shabu, the most common and cheapest street amphetamine.

“Whether or not he still takes fentanyl or similar drugs, it is clear that by his own definition of drug users, he himself should have been gunned down by police or vigilantes a long time ago.”

Duterte takes fentanyl for Buerger’s disease, a rare condition involving the constriction of blood vessels in the arms and legs, blocking blood flow.

That Asia Sentinel article impelled me to research on fentanyl. According to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (USDEA), while fentanyl is legally prescribed for pain under strict doctor’s supervision, “it has similar euphoric effects to heroin and morphine.”

In August 2015, the American Cancer Society warned that “patients who use fentanyl can have mood changes. For example, some patients may feel euphoric after using fentanyl. They may also have an increased sense of well-being. Other patients may have depression that features crying spells, even thinking about death. Depression can also result in behavioral symptoms, such as changes in appetite and sleep. Irritability may also occur from fentanyl use.”

What shocked me most was a news item from the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Aug. 21, 2016) linking the April 21, 2016 death of American singer-composer Prince Rogers Nelson to first-time dose of fentanyl that precipitated respiratory arrest (one’s breathing slows to a stop).

If it’s any consolation, the President is in lesser danger; he is no first-timer. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
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