Drug tests for kids show drug war failure, says Pangilinan

MANILA, Philippines (Corrected 8:01 p.m.) — Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan criticized the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s proposal to conduct drug tests on children as young as 10 years old, saying it is “an admission that the brutal government war on drugs is ineffective.”

“We propose that the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency shelve this slapdash and panicky plan trained on little children, and instead go after the big drug lords to stop the flow of illegal drugs,” Pangilinan said in a statement Monday.

The Department of Education last week pointed out that Congress will have to amend laws like the Comprehensive Drugs Act of 2002, which only authorizes drug testing of secondary level students and above.

“We join the critics of the idea, led by the Department of Education, because such a move is illegal, a waste of money and resources, and has a prejudiced approach to the problem of illegal drugs in the country,” Pangilinan said.

PDEA Director General Aaron Aquino earlier proposed to conduct the mandatory drug testing in order to “save the children.”

READ: DepEd flags PDEA's proposed mandatory drug testing of students

‘Source of corruption’

Pangilinan stressed that the proposal would just be another source of corruption.

“Given a population of at least 14 million students from Grade 4 to Grade 12 alone, the testing fee could amount to P2.8 billion. Who will earn from this expensive program?” he said.

The Liberal Party president said the funds should just otherwise be spent on the school feeding program to nourish children “and not be swayed to use illegal drugs.”

He also said the budget could be used on textbooks, school supplies, and building classrooms.

“It could also help fund the additional salary public school teachers have been demanding for a long time,” he added.

PDEA chief Aquino earlier said the Department of Health has enough funds for the proposal.

(Editor's note: The original article erroneously reported that the Department of Education had condemned the proposal to conduct mandatory drug testing, which the department did not do. What it did say was that mandatory drug testing would require amendments to the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 and that the department already has an active drug testing program in place. Here is an article on the DepEd's statement on the proposal. 

The department likewise did not raise concerns on corruption as was implied in the original article.

We apologize for the error and will implement steps to prevent a repeat incident.)