Staying alive

A detained female drug suspect perhaps encapsulated what is one of many reasons why the illegal drug trade continues unabated despite the hammer-and-tongs approach used by the Duterte administration in hopes of permanently shutting it down.

Interviewed by reporters, the female drug suspect wistfully noted that she can earn P6,000 to P7,000 a week just by selling shabu. In contrast, she can only hope to take home P600 a week to P1,000 at most selling food outside the schools.

Last Saturday, a construction worker named Edward Amancia Luzon was caught in a drug bust trying to sell P6.8 million worth of shabu that was wrapped in a brown bag to an undercover cop.

Luzon claimed that he was only told to deliver it to a prospective buyer who turned out to be a cop, but good luck to him trying to disprove the evidence against him.

Who knows how much he was paid to deliver the shabu if what he claimed was true, but it must have been large enough for him to agree to delivering it discreetly away from public attention.

But it’s not just about the lure of fast, easy, yet dangerous money, though it is quite tempting to those who, like the female drug suspect, barely earn enough to get by on a daily basis.

It’s also about trying to get the users or addicts to give up their habit, a task the Duterte administration is loath to do as evidenced by President Rodrigo Duterte’s description of shabu addicts as beyond hope of rehabilitation.

So far, the Duterte administration had focused on the low-level pushers even if they have Kerwin Espinosa in their custody. And not a few people view with skepticism the government’s handling of a major drug lord since they suspect that Kerwin will be used to further pin down Senator Leila de Lima, the President’s fiercest critic so far.

But it’s still six months in the war against illegal drugs, the President’s supporters insist, and there is still a long way to go. What we’ve seen so far is problematic and disturbing if we go by the casualty count alone.

The death of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. inside a cell with no witnesses other than his executioners marked a new low or high in the war on drugs depending on which side of the fence one stands in. And while the mayor may not be missed aside from his loved ones and loyalists, it represents a disturbing new level of violence against criminals that if left unchecked, can also claim collateral damage along the way.

But even with the prospect of death and execution from nameless, faceless vigilantes, would the drug trade ever be eliminated? So long as government fails to provide better alternatives like rehabilitation and abandons that mandate and leaves the other stakeholders holding the bag, then it won’t.

So drug suspects like Luzon and others who see drugs as a way out of their miserable existence will continue to find ways to dodge the law and sell their drugs.