Communist rebels on Panay said “drug addiction and trafficking could never be eradicated by just plain police work (or) by vigilantism,” citing “lessons that we have derived from decades” of fighting the menace on the central Philippine island.
In a statement posted on the Communist Party of the Philippines website, the Coronacion Chiva “Waling-waling” Command of the New People’s Army, said it had been fighting the spread of drugs since the establishment of the revolutionary movement way before the current campaign of the Duterte administration, and particularly in the 1980s when, it acknowledged the problem “began to penetrate the revolutionary ranks.”
The NPA command blamed the proliferation of drugs on “ruling class decadence and escapism” and said that, while “some regime may vigorously pursue the elimination of drug trafficking by forcible means … the conditions giving rise to a market for drugs and profiting from drug sales always ensure the return of widespread drug use, addiction and proliferation.”
The statement was issued to deny NPA involvement in the burning in Oton town, Iloilo of a taxi cab from a fleet owned by Melvin Odicta, who the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency has accused of heading one of two major drug rings in Western Visayas.
The NPA on Panay, it said, “do not, as yet, operate in Metro-Iloilo and go after properties of drug lords in the said area” although it added that the rebels are “developing the capacity in police work” to go after drug traffickers who, it noted, “are operating, extending or transferring their addictive drug trade and network, laboratories in the guerrilla fronts and area of operation in the countryside …” warning them to stop or “be hunted down.”
Among the lessons the NPA command said it had learned through the years:
- Eliminating drug use is “key to eradicating the drug problem,” noting that many addicts became susceptible “because they lack a sense of purpose in life” … “benumbed by poverty and decadent culture.”
- Also because of poverty, trafficking and production “has become an alternative income earner and could even enrich some folks. This desperate income generation has been stopped not only by force but by campaigning to increase production led by peasant organizations.”
- “The state, while banning addictive drugs, has also provided a fertile ground for corruption for its security forces and government officials who engage in drug trafficking or protect drug traffickers.”
However, the NPA command said they do not run “‘kangaroo courts’ that arbitrarily hand down death sentences to suspect drug traffickers. The description fits more the vigilante campaign against suspect drug dealers launched by the PNP (Philippine National Police) with its questionable results.”
“We abhor carelessly taking a life as life could not be restored once dead unlike when you ‘cut down banana stalks’ if you make a wrong decision,” it said.
Instead, “drug pushers detained for questioning were either warned to stop engaging in drugs, confined in their barangay or driven out of the NPA areas.”
Recidivism is practically non-existent, it said, because “the warned traffickers either take heed or evacuate the guerrilla zones because the people are organized to prevent backsliding via rehabilitation and vigilance.”
In the end, however, the rebels said “only a revolutionary state could eliminate bureaucrat capitalism, provide revolutionary leadership and authority to eliminate the drug problem” by solving “the scourge of poverty and develop a revolutionary sense of purpose to the people, to our youth.”
http://interaksyon.com/article/130896/more-than-police-action-vigilantism---panay-rebels-on-fighting-drugs
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