Right problem, wrong solution

Herbie Gomez /

I HAVE been giving the Duterte administration’s unusual approach in dealing with the drug menace some serious thought when it suddenly hit me — the President has, wittingly or unwittingly, weakened further the already defective criminal justice system.

In order to function properly, the five pillars — law enforcement, prosecution, judiciary (or the courts), penology, and the community (or the citizenry) — have to work with each other and provide the necessary checks and balances. If one of these pillars malfunctions, expect a disconnect, and the entire system grinds to a halt.

In fairness to President Duterte, the criminal justice system has been bogging down long before his election to Malacañang. The system is ailing, and has been malfunctioning time and again.

On numerous occasions, the Duterte administration has correctly identified the problem with the pillars of the criminal justice system. Consider some instances when his administration correctly pointed out the problem:

Law enforcement. In January, he railed against narcotics agents in the National Police who allegedly masterminded the murder of a South Korean businessman: “You, policemen, are the most corrupt. You are corrupt to the core. It’s in your system.”

An Agence France-Presse report quoted him as saying that nearly 40 percent of the police force was involved in illegal activities.

This pillar includes other groups that enforce laws like the Bureau of Customs that turned a blind eye to the P6.4 billion worth of shabu smuggled into the country. It has become evident that corruption has turned it into an illegal drug trade “apparatus.”

So there, corruption.

Prosecution. Shortly before lawyer Vitaliano Aguirre II served as a member of the cabinet, he told prosecutors, “The President has made it very clear to me when he chose me to be the Secretary of Justice, ‘Absolutely no corruption Sec. Vit.’ We will follow that mandate resolutely.”

So there, corruption.

Judiciary (or the courts). Duterte has been denouncing corruption in the courts, and even alleged on numerous occasions that a number of judges have or had drug links.

So there, corruption.

Penology. Duterte and Aguirre have alleged time and again that corruption allowed inmates to live in style behind bars and turned the Bilibid into a center of illegal drug trade in the country.

So there, corruption.

Community. This is basically the citizenry that includes local governments, barangays, people and all citizens’ organizations, political or apolitical, and, of course, human rights monitors. Needless to elaborate, these groupings, especially the civil government units, have been corrupted, too.

Again, corruption.

The fifth pillar has long lost its trust on the other pillars because of — you guessed it right — corruption. Duterte further weakened this pillar by polarizing it, and feeding its distrust and discontent to the point that it now prefers shortcuts over good old fashioned law enforcement, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment and rehabilitation. He has also been hurling invectives at human rights monitors in his obvious attempt to make citizens hate this sector. In a display of bravado and in a cavalier manner, he threatened to kill them. Reason: they spoke out which should never be misconstrued as obstruction of justice.

Duterte whines about government corruption like an outsider or like a grandstanding member of the opposition when, fact is, he is the head of this government. He has, in fact, assumed command responsibility over a year ago. So, whenever he attacks government corruption, he attacks himself for doing nothing to stop it.

Yes, Virginia, fixing the criminal justice system by first ridding it of corruption is the way to go.

But what significant anti-corruption feat has this government accomplished to address the problem that has long made our criminal justice system dysfunctional?

Duterte protects Nicanor Faeldon who, he says, thrice offered to resign over his failure to rid the Bureau of Customs of corruption. As shown by the P6.4-billion shipment of drugs which I already pointed out, this Bureau, which is under the Office of the President, is a huge drug trafficking “apparatus.” And like the National Police, Duterte says the customs bureau is “corrupt to the core.” So, he bashes everyone in the bureau except Faeldon, and wants him to continue serving as its head despite his admission that he is a failure. How would that rid the customs bureau of corruption and all the basketball stars cum consultants that go with it? It won’t. In fact, giving Faeldon a presidential mantle of protection is a pro-corruption move. It cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be anti-corruption.

Rather than rid the National Police of corruption, Duterte publicly promised them promotion and presidential pardon, including the controversial Supt. Marvin Marcos and, in his own words, the “40 percent” of the PNP population with links to illegal activities. This is a classic case of how a man in power can circumvent laws to promise impunity in the guise of presidential pardon.

“O ’pag walang baril… bigyan mo ng baril…,” Duterte said. That wasn’t funny. That was a promise of impunity.

And you are shocked to see the CCTV footage and hear about what was done to 17-year old Kian Loyd delos Santos?

If I were National Police Director General Bato dela Rosa and his subordinates, I would think a hundred times because justice in this country is slow, and by the time the verdict is out, the aging mortal king may no longer be around to exercise the power of granting presidential pardon.

This administration has been claiming to embark on a gargantuan and more costly task of destroying the apparatus of the drug trade when the easy way is to go after the sources of illegal drugs. You see, water will stop gushing out of faucets, and fountains will run dry if you shut the valve off. The apparatus will be useless without the sources and supply of illegal drugs.

But why are the sources still nameless and not in the so-called narco-list? The so-called narco-politicians are mere “franchise holders” or distributors; they are small-time vis-à-vis the billions of pesos of meth being smuggled into the country. Why is the President not calling out and badmouthing China when there was a time his tongue slipped and revealed that it is a major source of our illegal drugs? And where did the P6.4-billion shipment of shabu come from? China.

If only this government would have the same passion and energy to fight corruption in government the way it has been carrying out its misplaced “war on drugs” — most of the time against small fries and the little man in slippers suspected to be or mistaken as a criminal — then we would have a much better and functional criminal justice system. That road is long and narrow but that is the right path.

Even after a year, I still cringe at the thought and realization that bloodbath is this government’s imagined cure to all of our nation’s ills.

At the rate things are going, the Duterte administration would likely end up as one of the most offensively distasteful regimes in world history: a catcalling misogynistic and Narcissistic warmonger that’s proud of it; an arrogant, unjust, vindictive, merciless, capricious, malevolent, grossly abusive, irreverent, manipulative and accountability-deficient repressor; a hopelessly oppressive black propagandist that lies through its teeth with a straight face; a cold-blooded control freak with an unending thirst for blood, assertive but without feeling any need to show clear data and evidence; a stubborn power-flaunting totalitarian with a misplaced passion and a perverted sense of nationalism that sows the twisted idea that its actions which tantamount to state repression serve a higher cause; and a petty megalomaniacal Third World bully. I hope not. The future generations of Filipinos cannot be proud of that. Pastilan.