White Elephant?

According to the chairman of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB), it was a mistake to build a huge drug rehabilitation facility, aside from being impractical. The 10,000-bed capacity mega drug rehab center was built in Laur, Nueva Ecija, inside a military camp. Since June, there have only been 311 admissions. Because of its size, the upkeep and maintenance costs are very high. According to Dionisio Santiago, who was also the head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the center is also too far for most family members. Family support is an essential part in the rehabilitation of drug-users. What should have been built were small community-based centers that could hold 150 to 200 patients. That would have been more manageable and practical. He says that President Duterte may have been too excited to see the mega facility built, through the funding of a Chinese real estate magnate.

I wonder how President Duterte would react to these statements. Duterte praised to high heavens the Chinese magnate who funded the center, which now seems to be underutilized. The DDB also wants to change the plan against the illegal drug problem. Prevention and rehabilitation are the main thrust, to debunk the general belief that the administration’s solution is to just liquidate drug suspects. It is also necessary to identify poverty, which is often the reason behind the involvement in drugs, whether using or pushing. Duterte has not yet signed the plan submitted by Santiago to carry out his plans and views. Maybe he won’t. Perhaps the Oplan Tokhang and Oplan Double Barrel Reloaded campaigns provided more desirable results, where most suspects ended up dead because they allegedly “fought back.” I actually believe that the president is just waiting for the right situation to bring back both campaigns, and return anti-drug operations to the PNP.

In the latest SWS survey, almost half of Filipino citizens do not agree that killing drug suspects is the solution to the drug problem. But it also shows that the other half believe this was the solution.

Taking this analysis, the mega drug center appears to be impractical, if half of the people agree to just kill the suspects, something Oplan Tokhang ang Oplan Double Barrel Reloaded was successfully implementing. No less than PNP Chief Gen. Dela Rosa trumpeted the success. This center may well become another Bataan Nuclear Power Plant –a white elephant.