'Yakap Bayan' framework for drug abuse rehab pushed

LAGAWE, Ifugao — The Provincial AntiDrug Abuse Council has passed a resolution for the Sangguniang Panlalawigan to enact an ordinance adopting the Ifugao “Yakap Bayan” paradigm as the provincial strategy in drug abuse rehabilitation.

PADAC pointed out the Ifugao Reflection Camp’s home-grown Social Technology for Community-Based Drug Abuse Rehabilitation is a living testimony that the Yakap Bayan Framework of intervention does work.

“It provides a clear direction and trajectory, integrate the local culture into solutions,

utilize available resources; and exemplifies a unified and coordinated multi-sector and multi-perspective approach necessary to create a fail-safe solution to the provincial and nationwide drug problems,” the council added.

Department of Social Welfare and Development Assistant Secretary Jose Antonio Hernandez developed the YBF in line with the priority directive of President Rodrigo Duturte to eradicate the illegal drugs menace.

The YBF is based on the innovations and experiences of the province in its Community-based Drug Abuse Rehabilitation dubbed as Ifugao Reflection Camp as means to harmonize all existing government’s resources to provide a concrete and sustainable system of rehabilitation, reintegration, and continuum of care for former drug users, and support measures for the strengthening of families and communities.

“We had viewed the drug menace as a window of opportunity for nation-building from the barangay/ grassroots up to the national level, to guarantee a peaceful, comfortable, and just society for the next generation such that we choose not to follow the mainstream approach and instead develop a rights-based approach, now recognized as intrinsic to the YBF of Interventions,” the PADAC added. PIA - CAR