How Aquino created a ‘narco state’

Accused fraud, tax evader and fake news purveyor Maria Ressa seems to have been able to squeeze several millions from the elitist foreign-based opposition enough to bankroll an international demolition job against the mandate of Rodrigo Duterte, particularly focusing on the anti-illegal drug advocacy which an overwhelming 81-plus percent support.

“When Duterte launched his anti-drug campaign at least 46 local government narco-officials under DILG supervision were in the illegal drug watch list.

In insidiously undermining the electorate’s will, hers is no longer a question of press freedom and constructive criticism. She’s betting on sanctions to erode the government’s support. The black propaganda she’s contracted is not even related to the tax fraud and libel cases confronting her. Ressa is effectively waging a trench war to paint our president a murderous tyrant.

Look up the definition of sedition and connect the dots with acts instigating and bankrolling black propaganda whose objective is the withdrawal of international support for our economy. There is treachery in that and its victims are us.

If the anti-drug campaign of the Duterte administration were really at the bottom of her million-dollar international lobby then Ressa is at best being selective. At worst, she is a fraud several times over.

Her advocacy if it were to be moderately creditworthy should include the identifiable and attributable spawning of the “narco state” under the previous Aquino administration and an honest assessment of how a “narco state” had spread.

Unfortunately, the black and ugly propaganda she’s ordering up by purchasing the services of a foreign pedigreed lobbyist is certain to dismiss the even uglier origins of the “narco state” coddled by the Aquino administration.

Allow us then to trace the development of the Aquino “narco state” under his closest lieutenants. Noted for laziness suddenly Benigno Aquino III seemed to be uncannily enterprising.

There are basically two Aquino alter egos responsible. Their deliberate dereliction had set the stage for an anti-illegal drug crusader to act as the people’s counterfoil.

As a drug trafficking hub to centralize the illegal drug exchange the penitentiary system under the Department of Justice (DoJ) is a perfect command center. Accused drug trafficker Leila de Lima was Aquino’s DoJ secretary. Successively heading the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) were Aquino appointees. One was forced to resign when high-profile inmates were found to come and go as they please. His successor was an Aquino provincemate accused of plunder.

As for drug industry operators, the Department of the Interior and Local Governments (DILG) was ideal. Two hierarchies immediately support a “narco state” — the synergistic webs of the national police and the local government officials.

Of five police generals in a list provided by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency one was a police director, three were chief superintendents, and the last was the aide of the DILG Secretary who bragged during his bid for higher office that he knew exactly where drugs were trafficked but did little to close those down.

When Duterte launched his anti-drug campaign at least 46 local government narco-officials under DILG supervision were in the illegal drug watch list. Among them was the mayor of the Tarlac town that hosted a high-tech drug laboratory. The list includes such ranking officials as undersecretaries at the DoJ, a former BuCor director and governors of large provinces.

As for the supply side of the illegal drug trade under Aquino, his political bailiwick served as a strategic production site. Right under his nose in the Province of Tarlac a high-tech industrial drug complex was built and operated by illegal foreign nationals. The production complex included a combustion tower structure, a diesel-powered power generator, an industrial chiller, a set of power controllers, seven units of industrial distillation machines, a gas chromatograph and a reaction mixer. In a neighboring province an even larger drug production facility operated.

These foreign investments in illegal drugs under Aquino were strategic. Given their combined production capacities, the Tarlac and Pampanga facilities could have flooded the Asian market enough to reduce street prices by as much as a percentage difference of 124.32 percent thus making illegal drugs both affordable and accessible. Among the garbage left us by Aquino is this “narco state” that we now need to dispose of along with the pack of vermin, rodents and rats fed and fattened from that pile under the Aquino administration.