“Alabang Boys” – give us a break

Here’s a game I sometimes play.

Imagine you are a visiting businessman with no prior knowledge of the Philippines. You have stayed here for a week and gathered various impressions about the country from the copy of the Inquirer that arrives under your door every morning.

Here are three conclusions you might have arrived at from the relentless coverage of the “Alabang Boys” case in recent days.

• Drug taking in the Philippines is almost unknown — this is why this exceptional case has attracted so much attention.

• The Philippines must be as incorruptible as Singapore — this is why the papers are so outraged at this alleged bribery attempt.

• The Philippines has no serious problems to attend to — this is why the papers are devoting so many acres of newsprint to this trivial case (not to mention the ruckus at a golf club that competed for space on the front page).

• This place is weird.

Unlike the Inquirer, which has clearly decided that the Brodett family is guilty (or so it seems to me), I haven’t reached a conclusion about the rights and wrongs of the case.

Given the way things work here, it seems to me quite possible that the Brodetts may have tried to pay money for their sons’ release. Facing similar circumstances, many of us might have done the same.

On the other hand, it also seems quite possible that, realizing that the young men were from a wealthy family, members of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) either set them up or tried to use their sons’ predicament to “encourage” a bribe from their parents. After all, it would not be the first time such a thing has happened in the Philippines.

That’s why we have courts; to decide which of prima facie equally plausible explanations reflects what actually happened.

I have reached a couple of conclusions about the furor over the case though though.

• The PDEA claim that the three young men represented “a syndicate that sold illegal drugs at the Metro Manila club circuit and did business online” isn't too convincing, if only because it has supplied no evidence of this, beyond dropping the name of Embassy (surely an easy target), which the club has strongly denied.

• It seems much more likely that this whole thing is about young people taking drugs for fun, an activity that has been widespread throughout the world for at least 40 years and will still be practised long after the Brodetts, the PDEA officers, you, and me have all kicked the bucket. So why can’t we have a public policy that reflects the realities of the 21st century rather than those of the 1940s?

What bemuses me, as much as my imaginary visiting businessman, is why the press has treated this as such a vital issue. The Inquirer alone has published an incredible 92 articles on the “Alabang boys” in the last 12 days, some of which, such as today’s ridiculous front page article “Retired generals rally behind PDEA”, seem to have been written solely to keep ramming the issue down the throats of its long-suffering readers. What’s it all about?

Comments

[Jeff]

Yeah, it's really sobra. Is it because we are going through a quiet period or does the Inquirer have some other agenda?

[Carla]

as my theory goes, it's not about drugs, it's about class. the over-the-top coverage of this story (plus the valley golf hooha) reflects the psychology of PDI editors and readers. the 'alabang boys' and the 'gucci gang' represent all that is reprehensible about philippine high society (in the pinoy middle class psyche): decadent, incompetent, corrupt.

of course there are also druggies among the poor but they don't get this much coverage in the inquirer. the tabloids frame drug use among the poor differently: they are violent, thieving, treacherous no-hopers. they are evidently taking the wrong drugs.

but as you say, torn, it is also about the hysterical attitude towards drugs in the philippines. most filipino parents i know (including mine) think that if you take any kind of drugs, you are automatically an addict. if you smoke and/or drink, you're on your way to being an addict--esp. if you are a woman.

what they must think of the british. i'm not saying i find it nice, but almost all brits i've met have taken drugs at point or another in their lives. it still shocks me how commonplace it is but there you go.

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