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Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

The idiot

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IN SEPTEMBER last year, Philippine National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa went to Colombia to “exchange notes” with that country’s leaders in the fight against illegal drugs.

Colombia has been dealing with powerful drug cartels that have earned for it the reputation of being the world’s primary supplier of cocaine.

There is less confidence in Colombians these days. President Rodrigo Duterte now says its former president, Cesar Gaviria, is an idiot.

In an op-ed piece published in the New York Times last week, Gaviria, who was president from 1990 to 1994, urged Mr. Duterte to reconsider his approach to tackling illegal drugs.

“Trust me, I learned the hard way,” Gaviria said, under whose term the notorious trafficker Pablo Escobar was taken down.

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The war against illegal drugs, the former Colombian president wrote, cannot be won by armed forces and law enforcement agencies alone. His ruthless campaign notwithstanding, the government failed to eradicate drug production, trafficking and consumption and pushed drugs and crime into neighboring countries.

Gaviria now supports a new approach—“one that strips out the profits that accompany drug sales while ensuring the basic human rights and public health of all citizens.”

Gaviria tells Duterte that military hardware, repressive policing and bigger prisons are the answer. “Real reductions in drug supply and demand will come through improving public health and safety, strengthening anti-corruption measures—especially those that combat money laundering—and investing in sustainable development.”

He adds, citing the spate of killings that have characterized Duterte’s war: “The fight against drugs has to be balanced so that it does not infringe on the rights and well-being of citizens.”

It’s an unwinnable war, Gaviria says, as he expresses hope that Duterte does not fall into the same trap.

But almost on impulse, and likely before he even read the op-ed piece, Mr. Duterte descended into his usual folly of talking foul against anybody who dared criticize him, no matter how well-meaning and constructive the criticism is.

The President also said he is taking full responsibility for the actions of law enforcers whom he has tasked to combat the drug menace. “I will answer for everything that I ordered,” he said.

Duterte also split hairs and said the Philippines’ situation is different from Colombia’s. They deal with cocaine and marijuana, he said, while we are dealing with the virulent effects of shabu.

Again we are at a loss on whether to take the President’s word at face value or apply creative imagination to decipher a profound message from a confounding man.

Mr. Duterte may just be acting in character—the maverick leader who will not be lectured by anybody—but it’s a character that is fast becoming trite and exasperating, especially since the results we have been seeing are far from ideal.

Nobody has the monopoly of good sense and wise solutions. But anybody can get drunk silly with arrogance and power.

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