Mga Drug Adik na Media Men, Mayors

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

One of the readers of my blog posted at Face Book about a poster titled: “Mga miyembro ng media na nasa drugs papangalanan na ni Duterte”.
I knew it was teaser but I have experienced about the bravados of some members of the Fourth Estate crowing to me when my ears were still wet on the profession.

DRUG ADDICTS. Illegal substance shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride)
users in the Philippines. PHOTO CREDIT: Starmometer.com

Ito tatagalugin ko na lang kasi pati pala sa funeraria binabasa na iyong blog ko ng mga imbalsamador I met on the crime scenes where policemen  and drug pushers encountered that caused the demise of the latter.
“Sabi sa akin ni Media Man X noong chief of police pa si General Y, may nahuli si hepe na isang sakong high end na marijuana from Baguio City called “Buntot Pusa”.
When the pushers, who were Igorots, were being processed for filling of cases by the chief of police, Media Men X and Z were busy ransacking the content of the sack and putting some of them in their knapsacks.
When the colonel appeared at the door he saw them stealing some marijuana leaves.
“Ano iyang ginagawa niyo?” the colonel barked.
“A wala ito idol, kumukuha lang kami ng mga Exibits A, B, C, and D para magamit namin,” X said.
“Bakit mga abugado ba kayo at kelangan ninyo ng Exibits?” the chief posed and laughed.
Those media men were “sui generis” or “unique”, they have immunity from arrest not only for stealing some narcotics but even using them while they interview politicians and police officials.

***

“Mga 80 percent ng kaso dito sala ko puro drugs (Roughly 80 percent of the cases in my watch is drug related),“ a judge of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) told me in Lingayen when I asked him about the influx of drug pushers being charged at his sala.

“Since drug selling of shabu is non-bailable, do you have any experiences about a suspect given bail because evidence was weak as what the Constitution provides as exemption to the no-bail provision?” I posed.

He told me the entire drug selling cases he litigates he did not give bail to the accused.

“Don’t tell anybody, I rooted for Duterte for the presidency in the last election because I want to see an end to the unabated proliferation of illegal drugs in the country,” he whispered to me.

The 80 percent litigants who were charged with the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 or Republic Act No. 9165  at the sala of this judge, a former practicing lawyer, a law professor, and alumnus of the elite Ateneo de Manila’s law school, are endemic in all RTC’s all over the country.

You go to the detention cells of the Bureau of Jail & Penology in the country and you will see that most of the detainees there are charged with illegal drugs.

President Rodrigo Duterte was correct when he said that without a knuckled duster approached to drug, pushers become emboldened and the Philippines would become a narco-state like Colombia and Mexico in the next four to six years.

I saw a documentary at YouTube about a proud new chief of police in Mexico telling the public in his inauguration one morning that he would not be likened with his predecessors who were under the payroll of drug lords.

 Just hour after he partook his lunch, he was ambushed to death by pickup trucks riding gunmen when he was bound to his police office.

Another incident about how long  and powerful the tentacles of drug lords like that of the Los Zetas, Guadalajara, and Sinaloa in Mexico were when the U.S Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)  helped the corruption tainted Mexican security forces for the entrapment of the equivalent of our Secretary of the Department of Interior &  Local Government.

That head of a cabinet told authorities that he received almost U.S $500,000 every month from the cartels.

Son of a gun, that’s almost 24 million in Philippine pesos every month!

With some police generals being incriminated to be in cahoots with the drug lords in the Philippines, I’ve been impatiently waiting for the president to name those mayors and governors who are protecting the shabu cartels in the country.

For example, a mayor in the Visayas Region has a house that could shame those old palaces of the monarchs in Europe. They said this mayor is a “faggot” who loves to Zumba.
Sus, belat sang amay nga yawa!
(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com)