This is ludicrous. Past three years unto the Duterte administration and it is only now that we learn that the drug queen of the Ninja Cops—dirty cops who arrest drug suspects only to fleece them of their drugs and sell them elsewhere– is still living and even enjoying herself with her illicit wealth? What ever happened to the six months drug free Philippines promise of Mr. Duterte?

Even our national anti-drugs body, the Philippine Drugs Enforcement Agency (PDEA) admitted that there are still 53 ninja cops out there preying on hapless street level pushers and getting their stuff from these scumbags and profiting from them. These Ninja cops are veritable parasites, dregs of society, and filth of the uniformed services. I ask PDEA– where have you been these past three years?

With all the president’s huff and puff, at the end of his acrimonious tirade, nothing–all bluster and fluff. Mr. Duterte is all sound, nothing to show off. I am not at all surprised.

Mr. Duterte is a creation of a population wary of societal ills that affect their daily lives. When a buffoon comes along, and pretends himself to be a thug, the people lustily welcomes him like a matinee idol, and in no time at all, the buffoon turns into their lord. He then rampages about, with all bluster and nothing more, until comes the day when we all wake up and realise that he is all air, nothing more.

The eerily silence and order we so feel as a possible outcome of Mr. Duterte’s bloody anti-drugs campaign is an illusion, made possible by daily harassment tactics employed by our uniformed services. From our congested cities to our untamed countrysides, these armed components of our weakened and weakening state, prey on our defenceless citizenry, like rats with leptospirosis virus in their tongues.

Duterte has nearly three years left in his term and still instead of improving the drug situation has become almost intractable. Compared three years ago, drugs are almost everywhere, and being peddled like crazy by hundreds if not thousands.