As the countdown to the deadline for the filing of candidacies for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections ends today, we hope the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) keeps true to its word not to release any list of candidates suspected to have links into the drug trade either now or at any time within the campaign period.
For starters, doing this would turn the barangay and SK elections into a witchhunt and a blame game that would only compromise and render ludicrous and inutile the election process in the grassroots, local and national level.
We hope President Rodrigo Duterte won’t resort to naming or authorizing the public declaration of the barangay and SK candidates involved in illegal drugs since he is the only one immune from suit.
Delegating that task to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) will only expose it to a mountain of lawsuits that won’t be resolved any time soon and may also cripple the agency’s operations.
It would take days to finish such a nationwide list and by the time the barangay and SK elections roll out, it wouldn’t even be finished. Yet if that were televised during the campaign period, that would be must see TV for a lot of Filipinos who may be glued to their sets to see if their candidates are tied to drugs.
Speaking of which, we have yet to receive official word from either the President or his subalterns on whether or not the country had been cleansed of barangay officials and aspirants tied to the illegal drug trade following the suspension of the barangay and SK elections for twice in a row.
During that time, the administration party had criss-crossed the length and breadth of the country recruiting allies to its cause in the hopes of mobilizing enough barangay officials to ensure the victory of their candidates in next year’s elections.
And doubtless all of them down to a person will be singing praises to the Duterte administration’s bloody war against illegal drugs even if there are doubts as to whether or not they have been deloused and cleared of any lingering ties to the illegal drug trade.
In any case, Filipino voters including those in Cebu may or may not have any way of knowing if their candidates are tied to illegal drugs unless they live in drug hotspot areas like Duljo Fatima, the former home base of suspected slain drug dealer Jeffrey “Jaguar” Diaz.
Yet it is important for voters to know their candidates who would likely accuse their rivals of illegal drug trade ties. In that sense it is best for the PDEA not to disclose such list of drug personalities unless they have strong, incontrovertible evidence that such candidate is tied to drugs.
Issuing such a list will only drag the PDEA down further and dirty their hands in the mudslinging between candidates that will ensue during the campaign period.
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