Thoughts on the Drug War

It's has been almost three years into the Duterte presidency and almost three years into his glorious war on drugs. Doesn't feel much different yet everything has changed.

Who We Are

It's a given that people have been killed in this war and we can only assume they were guilty. Good luck pinning this directly on the president. Nothing would ever be put to paper. 

Still, the president's critics and the usual vinegar-drinking scolds from the church wail about all the blood on his hands. It's all pointless and I don't know why they continue to do it. The president was upfront about what he was going to do. He ran his entire campaign promising to summarily execute the drug dealers and he won! What are we to make of that? We must accept that all of this has the approval of the majority of the Filipino people. You can't take the president down by pointing out that he's doing exactly the thing he said he was going to do.

Some harsh truths must be accepted. We cannot go on pretending that our greatest ideals are life, democracy and justice. The values espoused by the moralizers in the media are not as commonly shared as it is thought. It's all been tried. It's passe. It doesn't work. Everyone knows this so they went with the guy who said nuts to that and he'd do it his way. His critics crying about the death of democracy or whatever, don't really mean it anyway. They have their own agenda and championing old values and other lost causes is only good if it can get you elected. Who knew what would follow the EDSA era would be the cynical era? It's not so bad, for me anyway. I prefer people to be truthful. It's great that people have dropped their masks and shown their true colors. No more lectures about the rule of law or the preciousness of life. Anything and everything can be bargained away, any act can be rationalized. It's about raw power; realpolitik. Perhaps, it always had been.

You Seriously Don't Think We Can Win, Do You?

In three years when (or if) Duterte finally steps down, will the war continue? Can the troops fight without the great leader providing encouragement (and potential pardons)? I doubt it. One glaring flaw of Philippine democracy, and perhaps democracies in general, is that leaders change often and it can be hard to sustain long term projects since a new set of rulers brings in a new set of power players and cronies to infest the government. It's even worse here since politics is so personality driven and reliant on personal loyalties and not loyalties to institutions.

What if the next idiot who comes along decides that his big deal is going to be green energy or whatever, and decides to put the drug war on the back-burner, then what? Well the drug lords are going to come back, of course. What nobody realizes, least of all the dutertards, is that you cannot literally kill the problem of drug addiction and narcopolitics. I'd argue that the problem of drugs is just as much a spiritual and cultural problem as it is an economic one. Duterte's solution is the crudest solution of all and is not in any way sustainable. Cut the branches and even the trunk but the roots are still there. Other than killing, he has nothing else. Desperate people still want their fix and pushing that garbage is easy money.

What does victory even look like? Do people sincerely believe Duterte can solve the drug problem by killing every single drug dealer in the Philippines? The government can't even put down any of the communist/Muslim rebellions in the countryside for more than fifty years but we believe it completely eradicate drugs once and for all?

When the new kid in town comes along, the druggies will roll back in and it'll be as if nothing happened. Without El Jefe constantly rambling about drugs on the airwaves, people will forget about the problem. Always forget.

However, the word is that the president's daughter is considering a run for the highest office in the land. Now there's a very interesting topic: "political dynasties as a means to guarantee continuity in a cyclical form of government". If his daughter wins, the war could continue and I would be wrong. Alas, political dynasties vs. democratic elections is a topic for another day.

What I Feel

What do I think of the drug war, personally? To be honest, I don't care. I have already disabused myself of any notion that the country is some progressive heaven and its people saints.

I don't mind. It's just the world I live in.Do you blame the rain cloud when you get wet?

All I can do is hope nothing bad happens to me or people I care about.

MARS

One of the benefits of my job is that it allows me to observe the legal system closer than most people. One thing I have observed is this strange phenomenon that seems to happen whenever a particular criminal case has a lot of media attention focused on it. For academic purposes, let's call this the "Media Attention-Retardation Syndrome".

Media Attention-Retardation Syndrome (MARS) is a disease wherein people involved in a criminal case, from the public officials to the concerned parties, inexplicably drop thirty (30) points of IQ whenever the case is under intense media scrutiny or "goes viral", to borrow modern slang. It is theorized that the attention of the media produces among its victims a strong psychological response that causes forgetfulness, lack of focus, lapses in judgment, and other mental problems similar to those caused by extreme sleep deprivation. It may be thought of as a form of performance anxiety.

MARS is difficult to detect as it does not always affect people in all ways and at all times. It is possible it may not occur in some people at all. It is certain, however, that the likelihood of MARS is proportional to the intensity of the media attention. If the criminal case is featured on the national news or if a prominent politician is involved, sudden onset retardation is practically guaranteed.

For example, sufferers of MARS in the police force will inevitably and spectacularly bungle their investigation of the high profile crime. Whether or not the police always bungle their investigations and that we're only noticing it in that particular instance is a fair question, however. The police, in an effort to maintain the appearance of competence, begin to inform the media of their "findings", including their fantastical theories based on shady sources, lists of suspects who they may or may not be planning to question, and all the evidence they have collected so far. The wisdom of telling the public, and possibly the perpetrators, of your every move is not an issue. The importance of looking busy is paramount. It has been observed that the imposition of any time limit by a superior or politician dramatically increases the chance of MARS. Occasionally, the police may lock up the wrong person but they're only human.

MARS also affects suspects of the alleged crime. Suspects will exhibit erratic behavior and/or theatrical outbursts. Suspects may call for a radio interview or even a press conference to loudly proclaim that they're are innocent and that they have absolutely nothing to hide, no sir. They will then proclaim that "only God can judge them", "the truth will set you free", or any other such tedious platitudes. In severe cases the suspect may voluntarily "surrender" to the police despite still maintaining innocence and surrender being technically impossible since a case has not been filed yet.

A prosecutor suffering from MARS may suddenly forget the difference between preliminary investigation and inquest. Judges affected by MARS may come to realize or hallucinate biases against the party and inhibit themselves from the case. The lawyers file longer pleadings that read more like a madman's rambling manifesto. MARS may even cause delusions of grandeur as lawyers inexplicably begin to do their best impressions of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

It's a nuthouse.

Trying

There are never enough hours in a day.

Morissey - Everyday Is Like Sunday

The Ingrown

A pain on my right big toe had been nagging at me for months. Like many bad things in life, pretending it doesn't exist won't make it go away. Eventually the side of my toe had deformed to such an extent that I developed a blister since my flesh was rubbing against my shoe. There was a shooting pain from the tip of my toe to the base.

I decided to see a doctor. Based on the pictures I sent him beforehand, he told me that it looked like a severe case of an ingrown toenail and that surgery would be best. I wished it was a wart instead or something minor. I suggested he examine in it person first before recommending action. He scheduled an examination inside the minor operating room of the hospital. I guess he was that sure of the diagnosis.

On the day of the appointment, he barely had to look at it for five seconds before concluding that it was an ingrown toenail. I had two choices: surgery or antibiotics. I asked the doctor what good antibiotics would do since it won't exactly solve the problem. He shrugged. I love non-options. The illusion of choice can be very comforting. Surgery it was.

I had to put a gown over my clothes and a shower-cap. Since the nurses manning the operating room had nothing better to do, they began to crowd around. I told the doctor to keep the helping hands to a minimum. I'm no lab rat.

I lay down on the hospital bed and had them put the tray in such a manner as to block my view of my foot. I don't think I can stand seeing my flesh opened even if there was anesthetic. Speaking of which, the application of anesthesia was the only painful part. They brought out a cartoonishly large syringe with a long needle to match. He stuck it in a place I won't mention. It stung like hell. After a while, I couldn't feel a thing, at least, until he began to work. I felt him poking and prodding so I said, "Doc, it's not enough!" So he decided to stick the needle in and inject a little more anesthetic. For God's sake.

It went by quickly, I was unusually chatty. I tend to get chatty when I'm under the knife. I remember being operated on years before. I was a blabbermouth in the operating room. I bet they were relieved when the knock-out gas kicked in.

You have to cut all the way to the nail bed in surgery for an ingrown toenail. After he tugged on some things, he showed me the bit that was digging into my flesh. It looked like a shard of glass. 

So he wrapped it up, I paid the fees and bought the medicines and that was it. The toe needed to be wrapped up when I take a bath so the doctor recommended that I buy condoms to wrap my toe in. I felt the need to inform the pharmacist that I needed the condom for my feet. I'm not sure what she made of that.

I'm just going to let my toenails grow out from now on.

The Power of Negative Thinking

Recently, our house and lot was sold and I and my mother had to move to a new place of our own. Naturally, the process has been difficult. It's so tedious to take stock of all the useless crap one has accumulated over the years and figuring out where to put them. 

Of course, there's the emotional difficulties to consider. When one lives at a place for all his life, he develops emotional attachments to said place, fond memories and all that. I took several pictures of our old house for posterity and my mother refused to see them because it was too "heartbreaking." I guess it's harder for someone who spent a longer time there. As for me, I'm well into getting over it and I attribute my easy adjustment to the power of negative thinking.

I'm told, constantly, by my mother, family and society to "think positive". I try, I really do. I try really hard but thinking negative just comes natural to me. I know it's very detrimental to be a negative Nancy but it does have its uses. For example, instead of focusing on happy thoughts about our old house such as the open space, the shade of the trees, the picnics I had as a child on our front lawn, etc., I focused on the negative aspects. I thought of how dirty and dusty it was. I thought of how unbearably hot it got during the summer months. I focus on the rusty roofs, the termite infestation and the general dilapidation of the structure. I thought of how far it was to everything. I thought of all the bad things so much that moving to a our new smaller place seemed more and more appealing. Eventually, I couldn't wait to leave the old dump! 

Being negative can be made into a positive. Hatred, disgust and loathing are perfectly normal human emotions. All can be useful if channeled to correct thought and action.

Hey, people cope in different ways.

Counting Crows - Big Yellow Taxi