We’ve always known this to be true: a majority of those dead in the drug war, whether in the hands of police or in summary executions, are poor; a small percentage that might be seen as “big fish,” are “rubbed out” in the way that a violent President’s orders have implicitly allowed and encouraged; and there is a select group of people who can get away with pretty much anything, drug-related and otherwise, as long as they are well-connected to Duterte and his men.

This is what’s called the Duterte double-standard. And this creates the select group of people who might be labeled as Duterte sacred cows.

The ones who can smuggle in P6.4 BILLION PESOS of illegal drugs and get away with it. The ones who can be pinpointed as drug lord, but get an audience with the President to declare his innocence. The ones who refuse to even prove their innocence because their father is the President of the Philippines.

And if Duterte and his men think for a moment that they are credibly going about this drug war like it’s nobody’s business, then this Department of Justice (DOJ) decision to junk the charges against Peter Lim, Kerwin Espinosa and other names involved in the illegal drug business should be a reminder that all we see is a whole lot of dead bodies, few found guilty, fewer big fish, and a President who has no balls to actually go after the real source of drugs because, well, China — another Duterte sacred cow. 

Now of course it would help if Duterte just stopped with the violent rhetoric and disengaged from this drug war altogether — because a President who admits to not being able to control drugs (Aug 11 speech) yet insists on killing small time drug users and runners, that President just reveals how small-minded he is, how he gets off on bullying, threatening, killing off the powerless, which ultimately points to how ineffective he is as President.

Which is also what we are reminded of given the DOJ clearing Peter Lim, Kerwin Espinosa etal of drug charges purportedly for the “uncorroborated testimony of an evidently self-serving witness.”

Note that Senator Leila de Lima is in jail, based on the testimonies of self-serving witnesses all — seeing as a majority of them were actually drug lords and drug dealers already in jail. But I digress.

Let’s talk about Peter Lim, he who has celebrated this dismissal, saying that it proves what was said by Justice Sec Vitaliano Aguirre himself in Oct 2016, that Lim and the drug lord alias Jaguar, are two different persons.

Earlier in the year, in July 2016, Lim had “the privilege” of a meeting with the President (date: July 16 2016), after the latter had announced that Peter Lim was a drug lord in a July 7 2016 speech. Duterte was putting on a show of being strong man running after drug lords, when he met with Lim and had media present to witness him saying:

In an interview with Bandila on July 30 2016, PDEA Chief Isidro Lapeña confirmed that the Peter Lim who went to meet with Duterte in Davao, is in fact also on the PDEA’s list of drug lords.

In November 2016, testifying under oath in the Senate, Kerwin Espinosa admitted to his role in the illegal drug trade, and confirmed that the Peter Lim that met with President Duterte is also the Peter Lim who is the “top drug supplier.”

In December 2016, it was Aguirre himself who announced that the hunt was on for Peter Lim, and that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) had determined that the Peter Lim who is Cebuano businessman is in fact also the drug lord. 

That same month, Bato dela Rosa, Duterte Man and Police Chief, spoke with media, after a photo of Duterte and Peter Lim was released to the public:

“Nang malaman ni Presidente na ang kumpare pala niya ay confirmed drug lord, galit na galit siya. Instruction niya sa akin is magconduct kaagad ng case build-up. Trabahuhin agad para ma-neutralize,” Dela Rosa said.

Dela Rosa said he knew of Lim’s links to the drug trade even before self-confessed drug dealer Kerwin Espinosa told a Senate hearing on November 24 that Lim was his source of illegal drugs. He said he confirmed these with Espinosa’s brother and driver.

“Right away nag-report ako kay Presidente. Sinabihan ko sa Presidente: ‘Sir, iyung Peter Lim na kumpare mo sir, yung nasa picture niyo, iyan ang itinuturo ngayon na talagang confirmed na source ng droga ni Kerwin,” Dela Rosa said.

“Ang sagot ni Presidente sa akin, ‘trabahua, kung masukol, patya (trabahuhin mo, pag lumaban, patayin mo),’… Ibig sabihin ng trabahua magconduct kami ng case building kay Peter Lim,” Dela Rosa said. 

The police chief said he has since directed the PNP’s Anti-Illegal Drugs Group (AIDG) to conduct a case-building investigation on Lim.

In January 2017, Aguirre himself said the case that was being built against Peter Lim was going well:

NBI ang nagha-handle nyan, actually maganda na ang case build-up diyan kay Peter Lim <emphasis mine>. I’m going to the talk to the NBI at kung maganda na, ihain na ang kaso (The NBI is handling the case and has good case build up and it if is done file immediately),” Aguirre said in recent interview.

One wonders what happened to the “magandang case build-up” as per the DOJ Sec who now says that the PNP had erred in building a good case against Peter Lim etal.

One wonders what confluence of events led to the charges against Lim etal being dismissed on the same day that Bureau of Customs (BOC) chief Nicanor Faeldon is freed from Senate detention after he was judged to have disrespected the Senate for refusing to answer Senators’ questions about the P6.4 billion-peso illegal drug shipment of May 2016. Duterte has stood with Faeldon.

One wonders if this outcome has anything to do President Duterte himself, changing his tune about Peter Lim, who he had threatened in July 2016 but about whom in March 2017 he seems to have changed his mind about. On March 2 2017, this exchange between a reporter and Duterte happened:

Q: Mayor, ano ng update doon sa case nila Mayor Michael Rama, Loot, at tsaka ni Peter Lim? Ano na update doon Mayor?

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: I said, it is an [inaudible] unless you are caught in possession, there’s really no [inaudible]. 

So now, possession is all? So Peter Lim needs to be caught with the drugs that is allegedly his business?  

If President Duterte actually thinks possession is all, then: (1) all the reports of drugs being planted on drug suspects after they are killed in operations makes even more sense, and (2) we now know how small-minded — minuscule really — the President is in relation to this drug war. Because why the hell would any top drug supplier be caught red-handed with the drugs he peddles?

That’s just not going to happen. All that Duterte ensures here is that drug lords go scot-free.

Case in point: Peter Lim.