Drugs and numerology

MY, my, the Tita and her officials have been so terribly busy running around trying to solve the drug problem.

What's so fascinating is the way this latest campaign has bandied numbers around, almost as if guided by a corps of accomplished numerologists.

A few weeks back, to launch the current campaign, one senator made the headlines by declaring we had three million Filipinos who regularly take prohibited drugs. The next day, a congressman made the headlines by protesting that figure of three million and claiming it should be nine million.

Do I hear a bid now for 12 million? No?

Maybe we should stick to nine million. I'm sure the country's many numerologists will approve. Nine has a nice lucky ring to it. Maybe make that 9,999,999. We need to have the drug problem sounding really serious, the way a 999.99-peso price tag gives the impression of quality. At the same time, you don't want to tip the scales and round off to 1,000 pesos because psychologically, it drives people away. In the same token, a figure of 10 million for drug abusers might indicate incompetence and corruption on the part of our officials.

Not that people haven't started wondering. But people are still at the "9999999" stage, where they want to think that we won't quite reach the critical point of no return. So we praise heaven whenever some politician and wannabe politician comes up with a new flea-brained scheme to solve the drug problem.

For two years now, we've allowed the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to herd us into filthy cubicles where we were literally robbed: first made to pee, then hand over 300 pesos for a drug test notorious for false positives (meaning people not taking drugs coming out positive) and, worse, false negatives (people on drugs coming out negative).

After two years of mandatory peeing and testing, are our streets safer?

Just yesterday an LTO official said that out of the latest round of 1.9 million drug tests, they found 13,285 positive. The official declared, too, that the tests showed methamphetamine hydrochloride, locally known as "shabu," and marijuana were the preferred prohibited drugs. Gut reaction: Imagine that, thanks to the LTO, we got thousands of marijuana and shabu dependents off the streets.

Really now. First, the LTO tests only check for two drugs. I give you two guesses what they are.

But I was more interested in the numbers. Grab a calculator and you'll find that 13,285 out of 1.9 million comes out to less than one percent. To be precise, that's about seven per 1,000, a statistic that stands in stark contrast to the more conservative claim of one congressman that we have three million drug dependents. Divide that three million by 40 million, the number of adult Filipinos, and we have a figure of one in every 12.

Put another way, if indeed one out of every 12 Filipinos is hooked, then it means that out of 1.9 million license applicants, you should have something like 158,333 positives (wow, lucky 3's!). But the LTO bagged only 13,000. Your hunches are as good as mine. Did all the others just decide not to take the test? Or did they take the test but paid their way to have the results altered? Or have shabu users learned to just abstain from the drug for a few days, knowing their urine would then test negative? Or are those three million and nine million figures all the products of hocus-pocus numerology?

All that is, of course, irrelevant to the government. The Tita needs to show she cares and, boy, is she trying hard, for example visiting the LTO and berating officials for closing early and selling overpriced early warning devices. The other day, goodness, she actually began to direct traffic.

Don't get me wrong. All that's fine, but I think the Tita is much better at other caring tasks. Paying homage to Imperial America, for one. Or taunting the Muslims in the south, for another (of course, right before running to Papa Bush for support). And lately, threatening the drug syndicates.

Already, we're seeing results. The other night the television newscasts blared out the latest arrests: 600-plus drug dependents and 600-plus drug pushers.

Teka, teka, teka (wait, wait, wait -- really, the Inquirer should do something about this translating policy), isn't there something wrong here? First, I didn't see the Tita wagging her finger at those arrested. Second, oh the numbers again. Isn't it strange you have about the same number of drug pushers and drug dependents? Even stranger is the way this fits into the trends of the arrests. The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) announced recently that in the last year it apprehended 15,718 people on drug raps, broken down to 8,881 suspected drug users and 6,803 suspected pushers, drug cultivators and importers.

So many lucky 8's but hey, that's a ratio of 1.3 customers for every 1 pusher/cultivator/importer. Calling the Department of Trade and Industry: Someone better conduct seminars on marketing for the drug syndicates.

There's more. The PDEA total isn't a total: 8,881 plus 6,803 equals 15,684, not 15,718. Paging the Department of Education: We need someone to check if our law enforcers know how to count. If they can't get their number of arrests right, should we be surprised how they sometimes go off with their inventories of confiscated drugs, missing a few thousand ecstasy pills here, a few hundred kilograms of shabu there?