Drug test eyed for over 26,000 teachers in Mindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – The executive branch of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is keen on setting a national record of having all of the more than 26,000 ARMM teachers examined for narcotics abuse.

Teachers in the autonomous region, which covers Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur and the islands of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, are grouped under what was known as the region’s most corrupt agency --- the regional education department --- during the time of past ARMM governors.

John Magno, regional secretary of the Department of Public Works-ARMM, said the extensive drug testing program will also involve more than 3,000 non-teaching personnel of their agency.

“This does not imply we have drug dependents in our ranks. This is in line with the efforts of the present ARMM leadership to reform the bureaucracy and improve even more the efficiency of DepEd-ARMM,” Magno said.

Magno said their bid to have all their teachers tested for methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu) is also part of the initiative of Regional Governor Mujiv Hataman to “reconstruct” the once graft-ridden image of DepEd-ARMM into a fully functional agency with dedicated personnel.

Insiders, among them principals of public schools, on Wednesday said the department has been rising from serious fiscal and administrative woes caused by mismanagement by past regional governors.

Magno said the first to undergo drug testing were teachers in Tawi-Tawi, the ARMM’s southernmost province, comprised of 11 municipalities.

“The results of the initial testing are now being processed,” he said.

Magno and all members of Hataman’s regional cabinet had earlier tested negative to drugs in a mandatory testing the regional governor ordered in support of the anti-narcotics program of President Rodrigo Duterte.

The DepEd-ARMM was known before as “hotbed of corruption,” plagued with thousands of ghost teachers and non-existent schools that regularly received maintenance grants from the department’s coffer.

Magno and Hataman had enlisted more than 3,000 duly licensed teachers in the past 36 months after delisting from the department’s old payrolls all payees with fictitious names.

Magno said among the issues they are to focus attention on in the next two years are the lack of classrooms in far-flung towns.

The ARMM’s public works department will help address the problem, he added.

Magno said Hataman also wants teachers in the autonomous region to educate schoolchildren on the importance of the Mindanao peace process and the need for religious tolerance among Muslims and Christians.

He said they still need 1,400 teachers for deployment in far-flung areas.

Aspirants for vacant teaching positions will be required to undergo drug testing, Magno said.

“Applicants without teaching licenses will not be admitted,” he said.