FROM various operations in the whole month of November, drug enforcement teams of the Bacolod City Police Office confiscated a combined P3.21- million worth of suspected shabu. In other parts of Western Visayas, drug enforcement teams were also busy staging anti-drug operations and seizing shabu. Their combined confiscations could reach several millions of pesos, too.
Quite an achievement, right?
Not quite. If the sources of illegal drugs are left unchecked, and even if our law enforcers will continue to make arrests every hour of everyday, we will never truly eradicate the drug menace.
As early as a decade ago, the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime identified the Philippines as a global shabu giant. Its World Drug Report said the Philippines ranked fifth in the world in methamphetamine seizures from 1998 to 2007, next only to China and the United States, countries with much larger populations, and Asian neighbors Thailand and Taiwan. This report should have alarmed the Estrada and Arroyo administrations to act immediately.
Has the Philippines now become a hub for international drug syndicates? We have to attack the drug problem at the source, which is the funding, manufacture, and distribution of illegal drugs.
Without doubt, a more calibrated campaign is needed to solve the drug trafficking problem not only in Western Visayas but throughout the country.
The police and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency are targeting high-profile drug traffickers and users so they can seize more illegal stuff and deal a big blow to drug trafficking. This is good. For the longest time, we often hear of small-time drug pushers being arrested and picayune illegal drugs recovered, but the ābig fishesā and their huge supplies remain scot-free and untouchable. But our authorities must remember that drug trafficking is an organized crime on a massive scale.
Unless we go straight to the source, we will never make any substantial headway in the campaign.
