Oro villages urged to sustain drug rehab programs

WHILE the city’s 80 barangays sought additional financial assistance and police visibility from the city police, they were also reminded to establish and sustain the implementation of their community-based drug rehabilitation programs (CBDRP).

During last Friday afternoon’s City Peace Development and Security Council meeting hosted by the Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG) city office, Oro Citizens Wellness and Development Center chief Rhyselle Bernadette Melliza-Descallar said they are revisiting a proposed ordinance granting increased financial aid to barangays to augment their community-based drug rehab programs.

“There was a resolution urging barangays to establish their community drug rehab and aftercare programs but with the change of administration, it was urged to strengthen that resolution into an ordinance…back in 2019 there was a proposed ordinance allocating aid to the barangays for their rehab programs but it ran into some issues (with the City Budget Office),” she said.

Descallar said the City Budget Office said the proposed P108,000 across-the-board aid to the city’s barangays would be difficult ‘given that every barangay’s situation is unique’ and their needs would be different.

“So we would revisit this ordinance and maybe work on improving the process by which the barangays can secure aid from City Hall (to augment their community drug rehab programs,” she said.

In her report to the security council, Descallar said while 29 barangays have active community-based drug rehab and aftercare programs, about 20 barangays have inactive rehab programs and eight are non-compliant. About 14 barangays were declared drug cleared while nine barangays were unaffected, she said.

“They were unable to sustain their programs (due to financial constraints),” Descallar said.

In response, City Legal Officer Kenneth Tamalla said the City Peace Development and Security Council pass a resolution ‘politely urging and reminding the barangays on the urgency of establishing their community-based drug rehab programs’ which acting council chairman and Councilor Romeo Calizo agreed with.

Descallar also asked the city police to set up more outposts in the barangays for increased visibility.

“The barangays asked the police (for assistance to complement their efforts to invite more drug users Into their rehab programs) but when their requests (were not responded to) they addressed their requests to the (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency). So we hope the city police can help the barangays on this,” Descallar said.

For their part, PDEA Provincial Officer Expedito Cardona said they conducted house visitations as per the request of barangays to aid them in their anti-drug campaigns.

“We capacitate the barangays including the barangay officials. And the city has spent resources (to fund their rehab and anti-drug campaigns),” Cardona said, adding that the barangays should exert more effort to reciprocate City Hall’s assistance. (Stephen Capillas of City Information Office)