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OPINION
Page 4
Monday, December 2, 1985
The Michigan Daily
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Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Shah'
of the Philippines
Vol. XCVI, No. 61
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
By Dave Kol
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Straight dope?
he university athletic depar-
tment has shown a genuine
concern for the problem of drug
abuse among college athletes.
However, its current drug testing
program is unconstitutional, and
should be replaced by a program
that conforms to constitutional
laws.
-The Fourth Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution protects American
citizens from "unreasonable sear-
ches and seizures" and permits
searches only "upon probable
cause." Clearly the athletic depar-
tment's policy of random testing
violates this law. Currently all
football, basketball, and hockey
players are subject to random
urinalysis tests that screen for
marijuana, cocaine, barbituates,
amphetimine, and opiate use.
Reasonable grounds for suspicion
are not required. Everyone must
submit.
Undoubtedly, this policy will
discourage drug use among
University athletes. However, the
practice of random drug testing
sets a dangerous precedent. There
is no legal difference between
testing the nonathletic student
body. One could easily argue that
drug abuse is a more serious
problem among nonathletes than,
for example, the football team,
where drugs were detected in only
one of the 120 players last year. In
both cases an individual's right tyo
privacy is violated.
Certainly the athletic depar-
tment should persist in its fighting
against drug abuse. It should con-
tinue to provide counseling and
rehabilitation for athletes with
drug problems, and should educate
all athletes on the hazards of sub-
stance abuse. Drug testing must be
avoided unless athletes exhibit
behavior that strongly suggests
drug use.
Athletes are unlikely to protest
against random drug testing, since
dissent will appear to many as an
admission of guilt. However, the
nonathletic student community
should urge the athletic depar-
tment to take the Fourth Amen-
dment seriously. Unchecked
violations of this law could threaten
eventually us all.
This summer President Reagan lashed
out at the "misfits, looney tunes,tand
squalid criminals" who run the outlaw
nations of the world. His list was a good
start, but he left someone who fits all three
categories at once.
Elected President od the Philippines in
1965, Ferdinand Marcos saw his own
position in the early 1970's grow desperate.
The press discovered that Marcos had set up
a secret commando army to seize territory
from Malaysia-and had had the comman-
dos killed to cover up the story. Rumors
began to circulate that Marcos had also
killed political opponents from his native
Ilocos provinces
The economy turned sour; massive anti-
Marcos student demonstrations began: a
small Communist insurgency took
hold, and the Gallup poll showed more and
more Filipinos favoring American
statehood as a way out of the mess. Marcos'
life-long rival, the charismatic Benigno
Kopel is a University graduate.
Aquino looked like a sure winner in the 1973
elections.
The rest of the Marcos story is well-
known. He seized absolute power in a Sep-
tembet 1972 coup. Since then, the economy
has collapsed. 65,000 people have been
hauled off to concentration camps. Tortune
is routine. Marcos' closest advisor, General
Fabian Ver, has been implicated in the
assassination of Aquino. As discontent with
Marcos has grown, the Communist "New
People's Army" has gained effective con-
trol of several important islands..
Marcos, his wife Imelda, and their cronies
control the economy through a powerful
network of corruption known as "the Oc-
topus". One of Marcos' best friends, Eduar-
do Cojuanco, collected one billion dollars
from a Marcos imposed "coconut levy."
U.S. Ambassador Stephen Bosworth
estimates that Marcos' friends have
secretly slipped 10 billion dollars out of the
Philippines.
Marcos' wife (and likely successor) is the
former beauty queen Imelda Marcos. A star
of the international jet set, she refers to the
Philipinos as "my little people." Defending
her publicly-funded flamboyant lifestyle,
she claims that the "little people", "they
want to see a star." She opines that "If they
had money they'd only spend it on drugs and
alcohol. What a bore." To make life in-
teresting, she spent 6 million dollars of tax-
payer money to televise her daughter's
wedding.
Suffering from kidney and lung disease,
Marcos spends much of his time in Manil's
Malacanang Palace writing a history of the
Philippines, with himself as the central
figure. He probably leaves out his role as a
Japanes collaborator during World War II.
Even President Reagan (who last fall
defended Marcos) is easing away from close
ties with the Shah of the Philippines. Like
P.W. Botha of South Africa, Ferdinand
Marcos must turn to the support of proto-
fascists like Jerry Falwell.
If the Philippines fall under Communist
domination, it will be thanks largely to Fer-
dinand Marcos and his coterie of squalid
criminals.
Wasserman
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LETTERS:
A sinister silence
Releasing animals for researching
a
A HEARTY - congratulations to
Prime Minister Botha. A news
blackout, imposed a month ago
today, has argely succeeded in
hiding from the world the insidious
reality of his regime's oppression.
While some reports of unrest have
managed to leak out of South
Africa, the government's cam-
paign of terrorizing blacks seeking
their rights has been censored
nearly one hundred percent.
World pressure against the Botha
government depends heavily on
press coverage. Limited divest-
ment and sanctions against South
Africa have come about as a result
of the public outcry against the
atrocities of the Botha regime,
prompted largely by extensive
media coverage of South African
unrest.
The very fact that Botha in-
stituted a blackout proves the efec-
tiveness of press coverage in
guiding public opinion. Pressured
by many foreign governments,'the
South African leaders apparently
felt compelled to carry on its op-
pression behind closed doors.
Silence often leads to com-
placency. The public quite
naturally perceives that "no news
is good news." However, the silen-
ce of South Africa is an ominous
one, indicating that something is
indeed wrong.
The world should not forget that
since July 21 a "state of emergen-
cy," which really means the
suspension of all civil rights, has
existed in 38 segregated South
African townships. This policy
allows the police, among other
things, to arrest without charges
and conduct searches without
arrests. The government clam-
pdown, it must be remembered, is
in direct response to a growing
movement among black South
Africans who are demanding their
civil rights, especially the right to
help choose the government of a
country in which they are the
majority.
It has been estimated that thirty
percent of South Africa's gross
national product consists of United
States investments. This fact
should be a clear indication that the
protests against American support
of apartheid have not accomplished
enough. Concerned Americans
must not allow an oppressor's
whim to stifle their efforts.
What we don't know can hurt
others.
To the Daily:
Glen Anderson's remarks
("Purpose of pet ban," Daily,
November 20) indicates that he
does not have a thorough under-
standing of the Michigan Im-
pounded Pet Act nor does he
grasp the complexity of the issue.
The Michigan Impounded Pet
Act (SB 393 and 394) would essen-
tially accomplish the following:
1) Stop "Pound Release" in
Michigan by prohibiting any
pound or shelter from giving,
selling, or transferring a dog or
cat to a dealer or research
facility.
2) Prohibit the exportation of
Michigan pound-release pets in
other states, or the importation of
pound-release pets from other
states into Michigan, for the
purpose of being used in ex-
perimental research.
3) Create enabling statutory
language for the provision of a
state "Benevolent Transfer
Program" so that pet dogs and
cats in Michigan shelters may be
transferred to the School of
Veterinary Medicine of Michigan
State University, or to accredited
Veterinary Technology
Programs at Michigan colleges,
for the purpose of being sexually
neutered and/or treated for their
existing ailments, diseases, or
injuries.
4) Require that all Michigan
pounds and shelters establish
"Mandatory Pet Neutering
Deposit Programs." By having
new adoptive owners sign adop-
tion contracts and leave a
minimum $15 neutering deposit
which would be returned to the
petowner when he/she returns to
the pound/shelter and shows
proof of neutering by a duly-
licensed veterinarian, Michigan
shelters will be able to stop con-
tributing greatly to out state's pet
overpopulation problem.
5) Allow any Michigan
municipality or political sub-
division to establish and operate
spay/neuter clinics, or to con-
tract out that function to local
veterinarians.
6) Provide misdemeanor
penalties for violations of the an-
ti-pound release provisions; and
provide civil infraction penalties
for violations of the pet over-
population control provisions.
While recognizing that animals
play an important role in scien-
Public pounds and shelters
were created to address the
problems pet overpoulation poses
to a community. As the emphasis
has shifted from control to
prevention, a number of
animal welfare/control
organizations have discovered
that the problem of over-
population can be reduced with
the right combination of policies
and practices. We at HSHV are
convinced that the practive of
pound release is a major con-
tributing factor in the per-
petuating the overpopulation of
companion animals. It is our
strong contention that there is no
role for releasing animals for
research. Pound release serves
as a cheap, convenient method of
disposing surplus pets, and in so
doing, serves to perpetuate the
underlying causes of over-
population and undermines effor-
ts to implement prevention-orien-
ted solutions.
There is clear evidence in
Michigan that those counties,
communities, and townships that
still release pound animals for
research are the least developed
in terms of their efforts to
prevent overpopulation.
It is clear to us that in the ab-
sence of pet overpopulation,
pound release would not exist. As
long as animal shelters serve
merely as the warehouse and
supplier of research animals, we
believe the problem of pet over-
population will continue. We
believe that the scientific corn -
munity should be helping us
bring pet overpou-lation under
control instead of capitalizing on
this terrible tragedy as a source
of artifically cheap laboratory
subject. -Julie I. Morris
November 20
Morris is Executive Director
of the Humane Society of
Huron Valley
Philadelphia plagued by MO VE group 0
To the Daily:
I am responding to the editorial
which appeared in The Daily
about the MOVE incident in
Philadelphia ("Move on, Daily,
Nov. 25). You imply in the
editorial that the citizens of
Philadelphia have been misled by
the media becuase 71% of
Philadelphia's voters approved
the mayor's actions on May 13th.
Moreover, you portray MOVE as
innocent victims of a racial at-
tack, denying that the MOVE is
simply and purely a group bent
on social destruction. If you had
lived in Philadelphia for the past
ten years, you would most cer-
tainly have a different opinion of
the MOVE group. Besides
causing constant harassment to
its neighbors, MOVE consistently
declared a policy calling for a
destruction of the mayor, the
city, and society in general. the
basic tenet of MOVE's philosophy
is that society is corrupt and evil.
BLOOM COUNTY
In other words, since they are
miserably unahppy in this
society, they want to make sure
that everone else is unhappy.
Secondly, in the article, you
keep referring to the fact that
the police unnecessarily over-
powered a light-armed MOVE
group. It is very easy for people
to play "Monday morning quar-
terback" and pass judgement on
the police department. However,
you fail to mention anything
about the previous MOVE in-
cident which occurred when
Frank Rizzo was mayor. That
time, this same group was heav-
ily armed and killed a police, of-
ficer.You also neglect to mention
that MOVE sent City Hall and let-
ter in which they claimed that
they (MOVE) had spread
gasoline over their house so that
the whole neighborhood would be
destroyed with them. they wan-
ted to destroy the whole neigh-
borhood.
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While there are many innocent
victims in this incident, the
MOVE group (excluding the
children) are not among them.
Likewise, someone must provide
an explanation for what hap-
pened, but that is Philadelphia's
job, not the job of nosy out-of-
town journalists trying to make
this into a racial issue (which is
ridiculous since black neighbors
called for the removal of MOVE,
and the mayor himself is black.)
You insist that "the verdict has
yet to receive the national
questioning it deserves." Why
does the MOVE incident need
national questioning?
Philadelphia is having public
hearings which are answering all
of the city's questions. After all,
aren't Philadelphians better
judges of this situation than are
prying out-of-town journalists
practicing sensationalism.
-Gary Cohen
November 24
by Berke Breathed
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