Paying for a ‘war on drugs’

FOR Cebu Province, the number is P15 million. For Cebu City, it’s roughly P47 million. These are the proposed increases in what local governments want to spend on the campaign against illegal drugs in 2017, compared to the amounts they budgeted for it this year. Mandaue City’s proposed amount is P10 million. Talisay City wants P4.5 million for a communitybased after-care program.

Public support for President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” remains high. One in every five respondents in the Visayas (20.5 percent) told Pulse Asia in a survey from Sept. 25 to Oct. 1 that the presence of drug pushers and addicts was the problem they thought local officials “should act on immediately.” They deemed it more urgent than other issues, including public infrastructure improvements (13.6 percent), waste management (12.6 percent), better jobs (8.2 percent), and flood control (9.7 percent).

Against this backdrop, the rush to spend more on the campaign against illegal drugs isn’t surprising. It’s even mandatory.

The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) has reminded local officials that under the National Anti-Drug Plan of Action for 2015-2020, local governments are to “appropriate a substantial portion of their annual budget” for the anti-drug campaign.

Just how substantial will be up to the local governments to decide. The DILG set no floor nor ceiling, but it did mention some programs that local governments need to prioritize. These are preventive education, treatment of drug dependents, operation of Special Drug Education Centers in provinces and highly urbanized cities, livelihood assistance for recovering drug dependents, and help for law enforcers.

But with so many national agencies and local governments ready to throw money at the drug problem, the potential for overlaps and waste is real. Which agency will exercise oversight functions to make sure that local governments—especially those that lack experience or expertise in running rehabilitation programs—will spend their resources well?

For example, how can local governments’ drug abuse prevention programs avoid replicating the National Drug Education Program of the Dangerous Drugs Board and the Department of Education? Barangay officials are supposed to budget for “surveillance and monitoring of drug personalities and recovering individuals.” How will their communities know that such funds have been honestly and smartly used?