Chapter 93 Balcony
In the apartment building, the number of addicts slightly exceeded Li Ang’s expectations.
Drug-related crime, corruption, and poverty are often called the three chronic ailments of Philippine society.
Even before Duterte launched the war on drugs, drug lords had already used money and power to knock on the doors of high society.
From grassroots Philippine police officers to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, half of the country’s law enforcement agencies were involved in the drug profit chain.
Out of the Philippines’ total population of one hundred million, three point seven million were involved with drugs, and this number was growing wildly every day.
Poverty, corruption, backwardness, and ignorance—each factor contributed to the proliferation of drugs.
A large portion of Filipino youth, even teenagers, became addicts. They often lacked basic education, proper parental guidance, regular jobs, and any semblance of hope.
Many, desperate for funds to purchase drugs, even joined various gangs, proactively entering this dark profit chain.
It was difficult to determine whether the so-called "civilians" living in this apartment building were merely ordinary people peripherally involved with drugs or actual members of the drug profit chain.
Seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds, fourteen- or fifteen-year-olds, and even twelve- or thirteen-year-old Filipinos wandered the corridors.
They clutched either pistols or machetes, shouting loudly in groups of three or five.