Robredo is correct

By Elson Elizaga

BESIDES the “1 percent” that bobo Vice President Leni Robredo told us, she also mentioned a disturbing police pattern. In a report by Rappler, Leni said, “… they put too much focus on street-level enforcement, going after the small-time pushers and users. And even if we do this every day, yet we don’t take care of the supply constriction, going after the big-time suppliers, the problem will not end.” [tinyurl.com/ydospbmz]

Leni forgot to say supply and demand. Researchers have long discovered the drug problem cannot be solved by squeezing the supply alone. But I digress. 

What Leni says is the Philippine war on drugs is anti-poor. This opinion is not fresh and surprising. Poor people worldwide have always been treated poorly by their own government. All the big shots linked to the shipment of P6.4 billion worth of crystal meth are scot-free. But the poor warehouse guard, Fidel Anoche Dee, was detained for two years. Then there’s the convict Imelda Marcos who is still at large. So is Peter Rabbit.

Racial bias also affects police work in the US. According to “Why the War on Drugs is a Huge Failure,” a video in YouTube uploaded by the German research group Kurzgesagt, “… while white kids are more likely to abuse drugs, black kids are 10 times more likely to get arrested for drug offenses.” [tinyurl.com/h3esqg5]

The think tank CATO Institute also reports, “Black individuals … make up only 12 percent of the US population … but they represent 62 percent of the drug offenders sent to state prisons. Black men are sent to state prisons on drug charges at 13 times the rate of white men.71” [tinyurl.com/smgdbxk]

In matters like this, George Orwell is the favorite writer to quote: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” 

But Orwell’s statement is mundane compared to the extensive, down-to-earth Bisdak version. Love-struck teenagers contributed the following aphorisms, and some cultural anthropologists have taken notice:

Kung sapian, admirer; kung pobre, manyakis. Kung sapian, exotic; kung pobre, wakwak. Kung sapian, pot-bellied; kung pobre, bitokon. Kung sapian, black beauty; kung pobre, agta. Kung sapian, rugged; kung pobre, walay ligo. Kung sapian, confident; kung pobre, bagag nawong. Kung sapian, fair-skinned; kung pobre, luspad. Kung sapian, body odor; kung pobre, baho igit.

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A week after Leni revealed that the PNP and the PDEA have confiscated only one percent of illegal drugs in the country, the PNP spokesperson said the success rate of the war on drugs is 100 percent because the local factories of crystal meth are gone.

This argument is a good example of the straw man fallacy [tinyurl.com/hynl86f], possibly started in the Paleolithic era. The PNP is right about their accomplishments, but the economist did not talk about the local manufacture of drugs alone. Also, anything is 100 percent when compared to itself.

Apparently, our PNP has failed to do some research, too. In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs. But in 2005, researchers discovered that the success rate of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was, hold your balls, only less than one percent. 

The following statement is from the article “Drug Enforcement Administration” in Wikipedia. Footnote 25 leads to an archive of the DEA website: 

“In 2005, the DEA seized a reported $1.4 billion in drug trade related assets and $477 million worth of drugs.[25] According to the White House’s Office of Drug Control Policy, the total value of all of the drugs sold in the U.S. is as much as $64 billion a year,[26] giving the DEA an efficiency rate of less than 1% at intercepting the flow of drugs into and within the U.S.” [tinyurl.com/ofo6z6k]

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I AM NOT DONE, YET. Here are more aphorisms in compressed format. Just add what you already know. 

Risk-taker; sugarol. Allergic; hubakon. Klepto; tulisan. Petite; putot. Goal-oriented; ambisyoso. Freelancer; walay trabaho. Social drinker; palahubog. Photographer; you guessed it, maniniyot. Home-schooled; namayabas. Husky; haskal. Xavier Estates; Golden Kilids. Game; burikat. Hot dog; karne sa iro. Lunatic; balbahotog. Mistress; kabit. Colorful; bastos. Free; priso. Kung sapian, due process; kung pobre, ejiki.

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Dear Sen. Richard Gordon: Please refrain from eating your vowels and consonants. The Wuhan virus is a serious concern but we cannot understand what you are saying.