Swanky drug haven

Perhaps in a season devoid of stories about the historic impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, the recent reports that three multimillion-peso houses in the posh Ayala Alabang Village in Muntinlupa were discovered to be operating as drug dens would have run away with the headlines. They still made it to primetime news and the front pages, all right, but only always second or third fiddle to the blockbuster cascade of stories on the Corona saga. The public’s gaze is fixed elsewhere at this point, and drugs are simply not as compelling or sexy a topic for communal chatter, not even with the tantalizing patina of wealth, power and class snobbery leavening any talk about that grubby illicit powder, methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu.

It was invariably shabu that agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency found  being manufactured in ersatz laboratories set up inside three mansions in the exclusive subdivision, right in the midst of a gated community that prides itself on higher-than-average levels of privacy, protection and safety for its residents courtesy of the village’s strict security measures. One of the houses, the first to be raided, turned out to be part of the contested estate of the late philanthropist and industrialist Consuelo Madrigal-Collantes—a property leased for P260,000 a month to Chinese nationals, and then apparently left uninspected by the administrators at any time since the lease began last July 2011. The landlords’ laissez-faire attitude was a boon to the five tenants, who then turned the house into a drug den that, at the time it was busted, contained high-end laboratory equipment, chemicals and sundry paraphernalia of such volume that four trucks were reportedly needed to haul them away.

Within two weeks, two other houses in the village were raided, yielding more drug-making equipment and kilograms of shabu. The residences, however, were now deserted, their tenants scurrying away after perhaps having been tipped off and spooked by the first raid. All three were medium-sized laboratories, said the authorities, but still capable of producing P500 million worth of shabu in two to three days.

That’s not all. The police said they are also looking into reports that, on top of these narcotics dens, other addresses in Ayala Alabang are being used for another illegal activity: gambling.

How in the name of Gucci and Prada did one of the country’s swankiest villages end up a veritable drug haven? Muntinlupa Mayor Aldrin San Pedro and the police think the subdivision’s stringent but inward-oriented security measures were, ironically, what gave crime syndicates the space and gumption to set up shabu factories inside. “The mayor wants to have the security measures at Ayala Alabang placed under review, because the criminals are using this in their favor,” said city information officer Omar Acosta.

Entering the village is not easy, for instance, even for public officials. But even with the rigorous entrance regulations, those armed with homeowners’ passes, such as the lessees of the suspect houses, were invariably waved through, and whatever they brought in or out was free from inspection. The properties’ sprawl— the one-hectare Collantes place includes a main house located several meters downhill from the gate, two storage buildings and a swimming pool at the back—also diminished any overt signs of criminal activity inside; in the case of shabu manufacturing, tell-tale indications such as noxious fumes and wilted plants.

Still, surely the responsibilities of those who sublet these properties do not stop at signing the lease documents and merely collecting the rent thereafter. Isn’t it also plain good sense to check out from time to time what one’s tenants are doing, and how the property is being used? What is the liability of homeowners whose negligence in policing their lodgers leads to their leased residences becoming a hub of criminal activity? If the law is silent on that, then there’s a loophole that needs to be plugged fast, and enforced without fear or favor—especially on affluent but neglectful property owners. Communities like Ayala Alabang that put a premium on residents’ privacy must find a balance between granting them security and freedom of movement, and ensuring that such village amenities are not exploited for shady, nefarious ends.

For, if even the tightly guarded boroughs of the rich and powerful have become bastions of lawlessness, where does that leave the rest of us?