THE global hypocrisy about the Duterte administration’s so-called war on drugs makes a Manila estero smell sweet by comparison. “Look at Columbia,” the local and foreign experts say. Even the government there—Columbia being the world’s largest producer of cocaine—admits it has failed. “Look at Mexico,” where 100,000 people have been killed and the drug trade is still rampant.
Apparently, these experts would have a difficult time picking an apple out of a basket of bananas. Columbia does not produce 250 tons of cocaine —50 percent of global production—for its 50 million people. The $30 billion that the Mexican crime cartels earn each year is not from selling to Mexicans but to the United States.
The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA)—a US non-governmental organization—is a leading voice against the Philippines. The DPA mission “envisions a just society in which people are no longer punished for what they put into their own bodies but only for crimes committed against others.” DPA members are certainly entitled to their opinion that it is just fine for someone to use the drug. And if, by chance, the user goes crazy and kills, at least the family of the dead can take comfort that the user will be tried for murder.
DPA is calling for the United Nations (UN) to “take immediate action against the Philippines for the hundreds of extrajudicial killings of suspected drug offenders.” Now the hypocrisy goes to biblical proportions.
Where do you think all the shabu in the Philippines comes from? From The New York Times: “Just before dawn on December 29, 2013, the southern Chinese fishing village of Boshe awoke to over 3,000 police officers who destroyed 77 methamphetamine labs, seized 3 tons of crystal meth and more than 100 tons of meth ingredients.”
The US Department of State in their 2014 annual report says, “China is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of precursor chemicals, with approximately 160,000 precursor companies and production facilities.” China is obviously not the only trafficker, but it is unlikely that Philippine shabu is coming from Argentina, South America’s largest producer of precursor chemicals.
Go on the Internet and you can buy and legally import to the Philippines from Chinese chemical companies all you need to make shabu. Some are substitutes for the “real thing,” but the company will tell you how to alter the legal chemicals to use in meth production. The finished shabu will not be five-star but certainly good enough to sell to any pedicab driver with an extra P50.
When will the DAP suggest China be taken to the UN for facilitating the manufacture of this illegal killer drug?
The Philippine government allowed the drug problem to slowly grow and it must now be brought to an end. President Duterte said exactly what he intended to do and what the results would be. No one is happy with the killings and it is a bloodbath. But the reality is that there are actually more users of meth in the Philippines than there are in the United States (1 million).
Undoubtedly, the government is more than willing to listen to all suggestions on how to protect Filipinos from this Chinese drug menace. Suddenly, the global voices are quiet./ by BusinessMirror Editorial – August 7, 2016
