By Raïssa Robles

Yesterday, Peter Tiu Lavina – the mainstay of Rodrigo Duterte’s social media team – posted this on Facebook:

“To win the war against drugs, we need to be resolute like #PresidentDuterte. There should be no neutrals in this righteous crusade against evil. Let those fence-sitting nitpicking Humpty Dumpties realize that they are derailing our total victory against this menace. They are clearly on the side of if not protecting the drug lords.”

I found this post highly disturbing because it comes from an official of Malacanang Palace.

First, Lavina name-calls those critical of Duterte’s “war on drugs” methods as “nitpicking Humpty Dumpties”.

Second, he says these fence-sitting nitpickers are “derailing our total victory against this menace” (a convenient scapegoat if the “war” fails).

And third, it concludes – VERY, VERY WRONGLY I must say – that the nitpickers “are clearly on the side of if not protecting the drug lords.”

What you are implying, Mr. Lavina, is that nitpickers can become legitimate targets of your “war on drugs” because you have already made the conclusion – WRONGLY SO – that critics of your “war on drugs” are drug lord protectors.

This reminds me very clearly of what happened during Ferdinand Marcos’ Martial Law. What Duterte officials are doing is expanding the definition of who are the enemies of the state. Initially now, these are the drug pushers, drug lords and drug traffickers.

Their next target are the critics who are now being accused of being “clearly on the side of if not protecting the drug lords”.

And this is how the drug war can totally spin out of control just like Marcos’ war against the “communists” did.

This is what you call IMPUNITY.

Duterte supporters and officials don’t seem to understand that to reduce the drug problem they must put in place all the safeguards against mistakes, abuse and misuse of the vast police powers now being used. Wrongful arrests and wrongful deaths are what will derail the anti-drug program.

Mr Lavina gleefully quotes the Humpty Dumpty rhyme, which ominously ends with Humpty Dumpty falling and dying.

I want him to look soberly at this other nursery rhyme:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the knight was lost, for want of a knight the battle was lost, for want of a battle the kingdom was lost. all for want of a horseshoe nail.

I just had to get this off my chest before I go on with the frightening experience of this 26-year-old call center agent whose home was visited recently by armed police officers looking for him to “invite” him for questioning at the police station because they claimed he was involved in a hit-and-run.

I don’t know the name of this yuppie.

The narrative below is from Ray Paolo J. Santiago, executive director of the Ateneo Human Rights Center. Arpee Santiago accompanied the yuppie to the police station to clear his name. Here is Arpee’s story of what happened, which could clearly happen to anyone, including you.

In other words, no one – AND I REPEAT, NO ONE – except maybe those in Malacanang, is safe from being put on the drug watch list, which is also turning out to be a kill list.

The drug watch list eerily reminds me of the “Order of Battle” that was routinely drawn up and used by the military during Martial Law. It contained names of what they call the “hardened Left”. It often contained names of Jesuits, names of nuns from Maryknoll (now Miriam) College, from St. Scholastica and even from Assumption College. It was studded with names of students and graduates from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila, PUP, etc.

Drug pushers, users and traffickers, it seems, are now the new Left as far as the Duterte government is concerned.

Here is Arpee’s narrative, published with his permission: