Asia Times: Heavy hand of law lands on poor



	January 12, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Heavy hand of law lands on poor
By Alecks Pabico

MANILA - Seventy-four-year-old Ignacia Sebastian (not her real name) has had the cataracts plaguing both her eyes removed, but she is still having trouble seeing things in a new, refreshing light.

After all, she has to endure a host of other aches, among them diabetes and arthritis. She also faces being locked away in prison in her twilight years, serving a life sentence as a drug offender. Sebastian is only one among the 153 drug convicts at the Philippines' overcrowded Correctional Institution for Women (CIW). Authorities point to these as proof that they are serious about fighting the drug menace, saying they have been busy catching users.

Like other Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines has stringent anti-drug laws. Indeed, first-time offenders like Sebastian, who was found guilty of selling some 360 grams of marijuana in 1996, are feeling the full force of the law and getting harsh punishment once reserved for hardcore criminals. Not least, this is because of a tough-talking president who has vowed to send all drug traffickers to hell.

Yet even as authorities increase their haul of drug suspects and see them sentenced to prison, substance abuse remains rampant. According to a 1998 Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) report, the prevalence of drug abuse has not changed over the years. It says drug problems affect 14 percent of the country's 41,945 'barangay' - the smallest political unit - with seven percent of Filipinos between 15-29 years old exposed to illegal drugs.

Then again, it should be no surprise that the situation is still dismal. While apparently low-level drug offenders like Sebastian are now packing jails, where they are bound to spend years, if not the rest of their lives, the big-time drug bosses remain free.

This is because drug offense arrests have largely been targeted at street-level pushing, as even some police officers acknowledge. Says an anti-narcotics officer: ''A lot of those we arrest are really poor. There are even those who work just on commission, selling a few grams just so they can have quick money. You do pity them, but we are just doing our job."

Significantly, the rate at which women are getting convicted on drug charges is outpacing that of male drug suspects. Male drug offenders continue to outnumber females nine to one. But while male drug convicts make up just 7 percent of the total inmate population at the National Bilibid Prison and the country's five other penal farms, 20 percent of the CIW inmates are serving time for violations of Republic Act No 6425, or the Dangerous Drugs Act. In 1997, about 23 percent of the new inmates at CIW were drug convicts. By 1999, this figure had shot up to 38 percent. Nine of the drug convicts there are also above 50 years old. Chances are, not one among these women could be described as a major player in the narcotics business.

That the trade's bosses seldom land behind bars may be gleaned from reports in last few years about suspected high-level drug dealers being coddled by the police.

Still fresh in the public's memory, for instance, is the charge leveled against suspended Philippine National Police Chief, general Roberto Lastimoso, of coddling a drug trafficker. A police superintendent has also been accused of receiving $1250 dollars in exchange for the release of two foreign drug traffickers.

In the few times drug dealers are caught and charged, some get away with motions for suspended trial and for rehabilitation from courts, so that they spend time in treatment centers rather than behind bars. Philippine President Joseph Estrada has admitted that the masterminds are hard to go after because they are rich and influential, and with many friends ''even in government''. CIW superintendent Rachel Ruelo herself notes: ''So many persons convicted of drug crimes belong to the lowest level of our society - illiterates, the poor. They are in prison because they could not hire good lawyers for their defense.''

At the same time, critics say there seems to be a problem with the law itself, and with the way the courts are interpreting it. The mandatory sentencing under drug laws has almost always guaranteed disproportionate sentences for many minor drug offenders. With penalties based solely on the amount of the drug possessed or sold, a one-time courier with a marginal role in transactions is treated no different from a manager of a major drug distribution network.

Sentences for drug felonies have also gone beyond the prescribed limits stipulated in the dangerous drugs act. They now range from a minimum of life imprisonment to the maximum penalty of death. In the last five years, four women drug offenders have been sentenced to die by lethal injection. (The death sentence of drug trafficker Josefina Esparas, though, was commuted by Estrada, saving her from her scheduled execution on October 20.)

Short of the death penalty, what critics call ''excessive'' sentences have been meted out to many others, including a 52-year-old mother of three, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1997 and ordered to pay a fine of $7,500 for selling 18 grams of dried marijuana leaves. This amount is equivalent to about one-and-a-quarter sachets of instant coffee preparations.

Anti-drug campaigners may argue that the harshness of drug laws is minimized by measures that make it possible for offenders with indeterminate penalties not to serve their maximum sentences. But a presidential directive issued in 1997 suspended the processing of all cases on drug convictions.

Proposed bills in Congress are seeking to do even more than existing laws. One measure, for instance, seeks to institute a new Dangerous Drugs Act that reduces the amount of illegal drugs penalized with life imprisonment to death. But human rights lawyer Jose Manuel Diokno says: ''No matter how much rhetoric they give about stopping the drug menace, you have government coddling syndicates, nothing will happen.''

He argues instead for a system similar to those in European countries such as the Netherlands or the United Kingdom. ''They look at drug addiction as a disease, not a crime,'' he says. ''And the criminal in their systems is the syndicate. All their resources - from the prosecution to the police - do not go anymore to catching the user or even the small-time pusher, but to stopping the syndicates.''

Philippine drug laws and enforcement programs are modelled after those of the United States, considered the capital of drug consumption. According to Human Rights Watch, the US is where human rights violations in the name of drug control are most starkly displayed.

(Inter Press Service)

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