Drug tests as a political challenge

The Cebu City Office on Substance Abuse Prevention hit the nail right on the head when it challenged all candidates running in the May 9 elections to submit themselves to a drug test. Leadership is such a crucial issue that anything that may affect it, such as dependence or exposure to illegal drugs, will help guide voters in making informed choices.

Challenging candidates to take a drug test is therefore a good move by the COSAP. while a drug test is not compulsory, and its results are subject to the willingness of those who take it to be made public, the challenge still has its uses. Those who take it and allow the results to be published can hold their heads high before the public. Those who don't, or are not willing to make public the results, will have to bear with the consequences of their unwillingness.

Of course, it does not follow that anyone who refuses to submit is a drug user or dependent and anyone who says so is being both unfair and unrealistic. Drug tests are voluntary and cannot be compelled as part of the election process. There is nothing in existing Philippine election laws that require candidates to submit to them.

In fact, it is enough for the COSAP to have issued the challenge. It does not have to go pontificating about the pros and cons of candidates submitting themselves to drug tests. The measure of candidates is not up for the COSAP to take and assess. Neither the law nor the Comelec has issued any authority to the COSAP to act as the bar that candidates must hurdle in order for them to be cleared of any doubts pertaining to substance abuse.

It is not right, for example, for the COSAP to say that anyone found positive of drug use is unfit for public office. Not that it is wrong. The COSAP is perfectly right in that observation. But it is not up for it to say it. It is not the job of COSAP to measure fitness or unfitness for office. That is the sacred duty of the electorate to perform.

All that the COSAP can do is help facilitate the process of selection by volunteering to conduct voluntary drug tests. It should not have gone beyond offering its services. COSAP should have stopped with its challenge to candidates. While there is no argument about the need to have leaders who are not in any way involved in drugs, that is beyond the ambit of COSAP to determine, it not being an agency with electoral functions.

Nevertheless, the COSAP should be congratulated for issuing the challenge. By doing so, it has helped provoke discussions on an issue that is very critical to society as a whole, and not just the integrity of candidates running for election. Perhaps, after the election, the COSAP can issue a general challenge for everyone to take drug tests. The drug menace is the single biggest threat to society today, not terrorism, not disease.