Narco-politics and the electionsMarch 05, 2010 07:06:00
Cebu Daily News
Two candidates and a barangay captain in Cebu and Bohol are reportedly being investigated due to their links to illegal drugs.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) claims these three have history of arrests due to their alleged involvement in illegal drugs trade.
The investigation was announced after a tricycle driver from Bohol was arrested for trying to sell 12 medium packs of cocaine worth P720,000 to policemen who posed as buyers in barangay Capitol Site on Monday afternoon.
Vedasto Jubahid Corsiga, 54, later led the police to an abandoned shanty in Borongan town, Samar where a kilo of cocaine worth P6 million was seized.
The arrest of Corsiga confirmed intelligence reports that cocaine, a preferred illegal substance of the rich, has penetrated Cebu.
Corsiga's arrest as well as the ongoing probe of the three politicians in the region happened to be a loose thread in the web of narco-politics that supposedly swept across the country based on a claim by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
What gave the PDEA report some credence was a United States government advisory that supposedly warned the national government about the possible involvement of powerful drug lords with ties to the South American cartel that may help influence the course of elections.
As if Filipinos don't have enough problems trying to understand how the automated elections work and sifting through the promotional gimmicks of national and local candidates, now they have to deal with the moneyed death grip of drug traffickers.
To be sure, most voters are wary and uncompromising when it comes to drug traffickers but the problem lies in verifying who among these candidates are backed by drug lords.
According to Sen. Richard Gordon, who is running for president, a recent rice shipment from Vietnam supposedly contained a sizable cache of drugs and entered the company through Bacolod, Iloilo and Capiz.
It would be quite easy for the national government, specifically senators to call on the US government to issue the names of these candidates.
But there is protocol to observe and the Americans certainly would provide all the information needed.
Arresting drug traffickers, however, isn't as simple as obtaining a shopping list of names.
There is plenty of legwork to be done by all the agencies concerned. The national government should do its homework in order to effect the arrest of these pushers and traffickers and stem, if not totally stop the flow of drugs in the country and not just during this year's elections.
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