A Drug Deadlier than Ecstacy, Shabu, or Heroin

Regarding the current controversial aborted DOJ release order of the Alabang Boys, Conrado de Quiroz emphatically asserts in his PDI column dated Jan. 12, 2009 that there's a drug much deadlier than ecstacy, shabu or heroin. Excerpt follows:

"I myself have a couple of recommendations.

"One is to appoint Marcelino posthaste as Ombudsman. And have him investigate Merceditas Gutierrez for all sorts of crimes and misdemeanors. It’s the only way that office will ever get to do the job it is meant to do, Marcelino having shown he is one of the few public officials who can do the job they are meant to do.

"The second, completely seriously, is to put the Office of the Ombudsman under the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. The reason for this is simple. There is a drug that addles the brain more thoroughly than Ecstasy, Ecstasy only giving its user to feel the pangs of love or lust. There is a drug that sends people on longer and farther power trips than shabu, shabu only lasting a few days and rendering their users impotent afterward. There is a drug that is far more addictive than heroin, no amount of rehabilitation being able to cure it.

"That drug is corruption.

"Corruption is the most dangerous drug of all in this country. It gives the user to feel not only the pangs of lust or love of money; it sends the user to longer and farther power trips, making them feel like they deserve to rule forever; it is the most addictive drug of all, and one, quite unfortunately, that does not kill the user, only everyone around him, or her.

"It is no small irony—indeed it is a sublimely poetic one—that Marcelino set out to take on drug pushers and users and ended up taking on the justice department. They are one and the same. The justice department is the biggest pusher of the most dangerous drug in this country, or the biggest supplier of it to its biggest user in the country, to be found in the Palace by the Pasig. At the very least, you can’t have a brain more addled by drugs—in more ways than one—than Gonzalez’s. And you can’t have veins more addicted to constant injections of power than those of his boss."