PCOO holds forum on government anti-drug war

CEBU, Philippines — Around 1,200 participants, including barangay community leaders from the cities of Lapu-Lapu, Mandaue and Cebu and the town of Consolacion, convened yesterday to gain knowledge on the present administration’s war on drugs through its Rehabinasyon and Roadshow Townhall Meeting set by the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO).

In yesterday’s forum at the Mactan Island Convention Center (MICC) in Lapu-Lapu City, Assistant Secretary Ramon Cualipong III of PCOO introduced to the barangay chiefs and community leaders the Rehabinasyon, a program of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (IACAD), led by their office that has a holistic approach to eradicate the country’s drug problem.

This is the 9th time the PCOO presented the Rehabinasyon program.

Its partner agencies are the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Health (DOH), and the Department of Social Welfare Development (DSWD).

Cualipong added that this is the administration’s efforts to provide exact information about the government’s efforts in a harmonious way as well as to give second chance to drug surrenders through community rehabilitation programs.

“The war on drugs is an investment of the future. It is actually about life. It is not kill, kill, kill. It is life, life, life. It is for the future generation. It is for the future Filipinos. Just like all the programs of the Duterte administration, the president is looking forward to a better Philippines for all of us to have a comfortable life,” Cualipong said.

The program envisions that the Philippines will be drug-free by 2022, and to ensure that the families especially the youth will have a better future.

Police operations as well as rehabilitating and treating drug dependents are the ways PCOO wants in order to realize this dream.

Lapu-Lapu City Mayor Paz Radaza graced the program and that they supported the Rehabinasyon program.

“We, in the city government of Lapu-Lapu,are very proactive in the campaign of President Duterte’s against illegal drugs because my administration believes that if this problem is addressed then this won’t be any threat to our police,” she said. —  MBG (FREEMAN)