The Matrix Revolution

One of the more amusing things El Jefe's drug wars have produced is this curious thing called a "drug matrix", a new nonsense term to go along with "drug personality", "criminality", and other purposefully tedious and vague verbiage.

Way back in 2016, the president unveiled his "drug matrix" wherein persons involved in the drug trade were revealed. It was a high profile affair as it concerned drug lords within the infamous New Bilibid Prison and Senator Leila de Lima. But what is a "drug matrix"? A drug matrix is basically a chart which shows the names (and faces if we're being fancy) of people involved in drug trafficking and also shows their links to one another. It's not unlike an organizational chart one would find in a private corporation. Here's a cleaned up, "professional" version:

The matrix makes constant references to the president's rival Senator De Lima but hey,  it could just be a coincidence.

What's amazing about the president's cheap-looking whiteboard chart is that everyone seemed to believe that the information on it was accurate, if not, the truth. How did the president arrive at his conclusions? Who knows. It's on a chart with text, lines, and scary-looking mystery silhouettes. It's like an episode of C.S.I.! It looks like serious police work so it must be true!

The police have followed in the president's footsteps and have been making matrices(?) of their own. Apparently, this is how they operate now and they have a matrix for everything. I heard a few weeks ago, on the radio, a police officer being interviewed about some dead guy or something. "He was in our matrix." he said. Well, I guess that settles that. He was in THE MATRIX and only really bad dudes are in the matrix. Who's hungry?

Maybe people believe it just because of the way it sounds. Judging by the way campaign season is going, it's obvious Filipinos are tragically very easy to impress. If it sounds official and vaguely scary, sure. Personally, I find it funny. When I hear "the matrix", I tend to imagine people in trench coats chasing each other on the roof while dodging bullets in slow motion. In reality, however, people are being shot in fast motion and there's no waking up from the simulation or anything like that.

Imagine: death via powerpoint presentation.