Platform for ‘drug-clear’ barangays
Is there a “drug-clear” barangay? Apparently, there is not just one; there are 25. Last May 12, SunStar Cebu’s Justin K. Vestil and Johanna Marie O. Bajenting reported that a provincial oversight committee composed of five government entities had conducted an “intensive assessment” to determine which barangays met the parameters in the Barangay Drug Clearing Program.
Twenty-five barangays were declared cleared of drugs by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the Department of Interior and Local Government, the Department of Health, the Philippine National Police, and local government units.
According to the PDEA, these 25 barangays in Danao, Naga, Pilar and San Francisco in Camotes Island, and San Remigio do not have drug users and pushers.
In contrast, at least 11 candidates in today’s barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections are on the drug watch list of the Mandaue City Police Office, as reported on May 12 by John Paul Pepito of SunStar Superbalita (Cebu).
Citizens must use drugs as a litmus test to evaluate which candidates deserve their votes today.
Claims of clearing a barangay of drug dependents and drug traders must be evaluated. The “drug-clear” status of the 25 barangays in Cebu Province is not so much an endorsement of incumbent barangay officials as challenges for barangay and SK candidates to identify their plans to keep their communities free of drugs.
Poll candidates in the police drug watch list is just the tip of the mountain of concerns confronting communities, which must also attend to the equally pressing need to implement and sustain community-based rehabilitation and reintegration for the thousands who have surrendered to authorities in the campaign against illegal drugs.
In two special reports series produced by SunStar Cebu and published on March 3-6, 2017 and then on April 25-28, 2018, one of the major challenges facing local government units is engagement with stakeholders to create community-based treatment programs (CBTs) for persons who surrendered these past two years of Oplan Tokhang.
The second series highlighted that less than 15 percent of the persons who surrendered in Cebu Province by December 2017 entered the CBTs, with only about 50 percent of those who enrolled actually graduating from CBTs.
The authorities’ discourse of “drug-clear” barangays glaringly clashes with the SunStar Cebu’s major findings in the 2017 and 2018 special report series that rehabilitation for drug surrenderers and their families is a lifelong process.
While CBTs are emerging as the most appropriate response to assist former dependents and their families, the success of the CBTs depends on access to and mobilisation of resources.
Community political will and resolve to implement a costly, complicated process implies that there should ideally be long-term planning, as well as a willingness to continue these plans, specially if there is a change of barangay leaders after today’s electoral exercise.
While the most workable CBTs involve the participation of the church, academe, civic organizations, and other members of civil society, LGU elected officials and other communal stakeholders are crucial for leading initiatives, sustaining the collaboration, and channeling resources.
One of the fruits of the “Labang/Ubas” program is the resolution of the Archdiocese of Cebu to focus on preventing drug dependence by implementing a program next year to work with street children and out-of-school youths.
The War on Drugs revealed the vulnerability of low-income families and communities not just in their limited access to center-based opportunities for recovery and reintegration but also in their victimization in extrajudicial killings.
Candidates aspiring to serve their communities should see the bigger, complex context of keeping a barangay “drug-clear.”