Measures to Enhance the Fight on Illegal Drugs

In view of the killing of a South Korean businessman and few Chinese nationals, 32 persons and some youths like Kian delos Santos this year 2017, by some wayward policemen hiding under the intensified campaign against criminality and illegal drugs of the Duterte Administration that further put it into bad taste last week, I, as a humble citizen of this country wishes to the Administration itself, in tandem with the Legislative and the Judicial branch of the Government, the following measures to enhance the said campaign:
1. The Administration must propose to Congress the enactment into law of a new Criminal Code that will repeal the antiquated Revised Penal Code and will shape the modernization of the country’s criminal justice system to have a fast investigation and speedy trial and to ensure total justice for both rich or poor. It may also categorizes the imposition of death penalty on heinous crimes and the imposition of life imprisonment on non-heinous crimes if ever. 2. The Philippine National Police (PNP) must begin cleansing of its ranks. It must weed out the abusive, corrupt police officials and policemen as well as those who are involved in criminal and illegal drug syndicates. It must speed up its investigation of them within five days and to file administrative and criminal cases against them. To further this, the Administration must endorse as a priority bill of it, Senate Bill No. 1274 filed by Senator Richard Gordon, which seeks to create courts that will try and decide cases involving policemen accused of doing illegal activity. Pending the enactment of the bill into law, the Supreme Court en banc, on its own initiative may also designate some courts throughout the country as police courts.
3. The Administration, shall create an independent fact-finding commission that will investigate and recommend prosecution of those involved in summary killings, including the killing of the South Korean businessman that put into bad taste its campaign against illegal drugs and criminality all over the country. If ever the Administration wants to have such body the power to prosecute instead of recommending prosecution, it must ask Congress to enact a law giving the body such power.
4. The Supreme Court en banc must also simplify the regulations on speedy disposition of cases and continue to modernize the justice system like enhancing the e-subpoena and initiate more judicial reforms.
6. The President must convene the Judicial-Executive and Legislative Advisory Coordinating Council or JELACC for faster cooperation and coordination between the three branches of the Government in the campaign against illegal drugs and criminality and to ensure that such fight must be within the confines of the legal system in further tweaking the five pillars of the criminal justice system as well as the prioritization of the enactment into laws of pending bills in the Senate and in the House of Representatives that will sustain the campaign.
7. The Administration, aside from law enforcement option and also aside from declaring it a threat to national security, must also initiate anti-poverty programs to defeat poverty, the main root cause of the illegal drugs and criminality. And in case of illegal drugs, the Administration must enhance its use of public health strategy to deal with illegal drugs by creating more rehabilitation centers and by asking the Congress to enact a social legislation that will include rehabilitation as part of the coverage for medical and health insurance as suggested by De La Salle University Political Science Professor Dr. Antonio Contreras in his column in Manila Times last November 14, 2016.
8. The Administration must also consider the suggestion of Dr. Contreras in the same Manila Times column last November 14, 2016 to legalize the use of some drugs in the country like marijuana for health purposes. Several countries in Europe did it. To quote Dr. Contretas in his column:
“State regulation of drug consumption, distribution and salesaddresses the natural human need for pleasure, denies crime syndicates and their political patrons the opportunity to use drugs as their capital, and removes the nesting ground for the forces attending the development of a narco-state. It is the only sustainable solution.”

Comments can be submitted to my e-mail:
jamesvelina45@gmail.com

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