Vice President Leni Robredo’s appointment as anti-drug czar is turning out to be a purposive move by President Rodrigo Duterte.
A week into her new function, Robredo is introduced to the government’s real concept of the anti-drug war bereft of the prejudicial and uneducated opinion she and her peers from the opposition had. Now that she is looking at things from the inside, she is getting a real education.
Robredo was given the walk-through by the Philippine National Police (PNP) officer-in-charge, Lt. Gen. Archie Gamboa of the Philippine Anti-Drug Strategy (PADS) which included the popular “Tok-hang” — a word that falls under derogatory and dangerous in Robredo’s vocabulary before her appointment to the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD).
In Robredo’s mind, Tok-hang is the main culprit of the bloody drug war. In her book, it is state-sponsored killing.
After the briefing, Robredo must have cleared her mind because according to Gamboa she said “all is in order.”
That’s actually what it is, if only Robredo had opened her mind before she opened her mouth. Tok-hang is a community-based strategy basically rooted in personal communication. Tok-hang is an abbreviation rooted in Visayan dialect which is “Tok-tok, Hangyo.” Dabawenyos are very much familiar to this term being the chief strategy of then city police director and now Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa in his anti-illegal drugs campaign.
Tok-hang is a community-based approach geared towards drug-free barangays. If Robredo’s “alternative” strategy in combatting illegal drugs is driven by limiting the demand side, Tok-hang is actually the perfect weapon to minimize or eliminate the demand aspect. By communicating to the personalities in the barangays, Tok-hang actually is attacking the demand chain.
Robredo agreed that Oplan Tokhang will remain in place but stressed the campaign must undergo a “retooling.” Whatever that re-tooling she has in mind right now, Robredo has already been swayed to the viability of Tok-hang. Now, she must have understand it. Something others in the opposition refused to understand until now.
If Robredo one day will endorse Tok-hang as her strategy, it is not surprising. Perhaps that is the wisdom behind making her the anti-drug czar.
President Duterte doesn’t visit Robredo in her office or where she lives. But for over three years of his administration and trying to convince himself that he can still get her to work with him, he must have parked his motorcycle inside Robredo’s brain.
