Of 'sexcapades' and awards

Let's get that torrid sex video of Leila De Lima out of FB. We have enough of the sexcapades from the true confessions of drivers and inmates. We have seen and heard it all. For the duration of her incumbency as Secretary of Justice, inmates controlled the drug operations in the country and in between the singing and dancing we marveled over the 'kubols' inside the penitentiary which served as 5-star brothel.

By this time the nation must have come to realize the damage that drugs have caused not only on the lives of those who became victims of the devil's brew but also on our sense of values, morality and propriety.

Imagine our lady senator coming home with trophy and citations for her denouncing her own government in foreign forums on matters which she herself conjured. She left abroad scarred by litany of lurid confessions elicited during the senate and congressional inquiries from high profile drug convicts who spelled out everything including the steamy affairs in and out of the New Bilibid prison. She dismissed it casually as frailty of a woman. By the looks of it all however it is more like the weakness and helplessness of men. Sadly, for this country we are torn apart because of political power play and religious hypocrisy. The church kept mum over the illicit affairs that let loose not only the morality but also the security in the penitentiary allowing the free flow of drugs, whores and billions of cash that underwrote the campaign funds of candidates.

Before the present administration came into power, we shuddered at how many innocent people were killed in broad daylight right in the national capital region. We heard and read of helpless women and children raped with nary a suspect brought to jail. As we know then and now, many of these madmen were hooked on drugs but the law was rendered inutile because the very institution that should have revved the apparatus to address the crime syndicate was in itself the institution that abetted and propagated drug syndicates with strange abandon. The leadership then did not care. Recall how LP candidate Mar Roxas casually and confidently said that he can guide journalists where to buy drugs in Davao and in Makati?

On the other hand, candidate Rodrigo Duterte also confidently declared that he can wipe out drugs in three to six months. He is about to end his six-month war against drugs but he is still at it. Obviously he was not in possession of the statistics of drug problem in the country as Pres. Benigno Aquino III and Roxas do. DILG Sec. Jesse Robredo did but he died a mysterious death which nobody seemly never ever bothered to know the reasons why.

It took some degree of stubborn will and determination along with changes in the upper echelon of the Police organization for the Duterte government to slowly unveil the extent of crime and drug syndicates.

What he discovered was way beyond his estimates. Several police generals with scores of other officials in the take , hundreds of elected officials in the payroll to include barangay officials. But the most startling of it all is the discovery of the drug distribution center which is operating with impunity right in the heart of the state penitentiary. This is not only criminal it is also despicable given the fact that it is under the direct supervision of the Justice Department.

Any which way you look at it what we have was a veritable narco state.

Duterte's war against drug became a complicated process. In this struggle he faces several fronts: the drug syndicates, the political opposition which refused to believe its own statistics, the Catholic Church for wantonly meddling in politics and human rights watch organizations which exaggerate statistics to justify their fund-raising activities never mind if it damages the mother land.

The anti-Duterte cabal, moreover, has thrown away whatever is left of their sense of patriotism. They linked up with US-based propaganda machines and Filipino-Americans to wage a not-so-covert movement to unseat Pres. Rodrigo Duterte. The most rabid of them all is Loida Lewis, a Filipina who married an American billionaire who owns Federal Express. The Fil-Am supported Hilary Clinton in the recent Presidential derby and intruded in Philippine politics by investing on Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo. Loida must be a harbinger of bad luck her presidential bets lost miserably. Robredo survived but is gingerly hanging to her post as the result of the VP race is being challenged. Still Ms Lewis is not stopping at nothing. She went on worldwide TV demanding Duterte's resignation and for her anointed Leni to take over the Presidency. The gall.

I do not expect the inside and outside forces against Duterte to ebb. On the other hand, this President loves the kind of challenges that these dubious forces are foisting on him. Which is good for the country. Duterte had won admirers for his fight against drugs. They knew that there will be casualties. But what is noteworthy in this struggle is that Duterte is not only winning this war where maybe about 3,000 hardcore members of the drug syndicate perished. What is more significant here is that over 700,000 who are into drugs surrendered and submitted themselves for rehabilitation. The Church and the human rights watchdogs conveniently ignored this fact. Like De Lima, whom they extol like their patron saint, they would rather focus on the dead who, in wanting to pursue their heinous crime, fought it out with the law and having opted to shoot it out perished.

Such will be the fate of those who would rather side with the criminal. The religious will have to answer before the heaven's gatekeeper, the politicians before the people who are tired listening and watching x-rated and amorous display of man's frailty and helplessness over a domineering might of a woman in control.

(Mr. Jun Ledesma is a community journalist who writes from Davao City comments from the perspective of a Mindanaoan)