Government to build 4 mega-rehab centers for drug surrenderees

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Four mega drug rehabilitation and treatment centers will soon rise in different parts of the country to accommodate the drug suspects who have surrendered to authorities, Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial disclosed.

As this developed, Negros Oriental Rep. Arnulfo Teves, a self-confessed former drug dependent, advised Dangerous Drugs Board chairman Felipe Rojas Jr. to tap recovering drug addicts to effectively help rehabilitate the suspects. “It’s difficult to believe a person who was never an addict,” Teves said.

More than 600,000 suspected drug users and pushers have turned themselves in to officials to avoid getting killed. President Duterte’s relentless war against illegal drugs.

Ubial said two of the centers would be established in Luzon and one each in the Visayas and Mindanao. They will be put up with the help of the private sector.

“For us in the Department of Health, the challenge is tremendous because we are actually trying to address in a short period of time the increasing number of surrenderees,” Ubial said during a recent visit here. 

Ubial explained those involved in the rehabilitation and treatment centers as well as program managers were really working overtime to develop the algorithm and what to do with the patients and surrenderees. 

Ubial said the surrenderees had been categorized into three different groups – the community-based, the outpatient and the residential.

The health chief also said they assessed the capacity of the existing rehabilitation and treatment centers in the country.  

“We responded to the search capacity of our treatment and (rehabilitation) centers. Most of them are accepting two times and even three times their usual capacity,” Ubial said.

Ubial said a special team was now working with other members of the Cabinet in putting up the centers. 

Ubial noted the tremendous support the Duterte administration had been getting from several sectors in addressing the drug menace was “really just heartwarming.”

“…even if resources of government are actually very minimal, the private sector is coming in and helping us in this particular campaign of the President to really address the drug problem,” Ubial said.

“And I think everyone is also pitching in to help address  the problem,” she said. 

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency director general Isidro Lapeña said the mega rehabilitation and treatment centers would be established in military camps such as at Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ejica and Camp Jamindan in Panay.

Effective rehabilitation

Teves, who also sits as vice chairman of the House of Representatives’ dangerous drugs committee headed by Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, suggested that government makes sure those who surrendered would finish their rehabilitation program.

“I’m very happy with the number of our surrenderees, but the problem is we have no legal basis in forcing them to stay there (rehabilitation centers),” he said.

Barbers urged fellow House members to follow Teves’ example as Parañaque Rep. Gus Tambunting said Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez’s proposal to make drug testing mandatory for House members might not hold water due to the absence of a law compelling them to do so.