Gov mulls EO to help gov’t workers tested positive for drug use

DAVIDE

TO help government employees of Cebu province found positive of using illegal drugs, Gov. Hilario Davide III is considering issuing an executive order (EO) to provide the guidelines on how to deal with them.

Davide said in a press briefing yesterday that the planned EO would also cover the local government units under the Capitol.

“Sila (LGUs) pud, they are asking us unsaon ni mga empleyado nila nga nag positive (the LGUs were also asking us, what are they going to do with their employees that were found positive). We are looking at giving them (employees) a chance for reemployment after rehabilitation,” Davide said.

He also said that the reemployment would also be based on the assessment of the employee’s rehabilitation program.

This will depend if the employee is a drug dependent or if he or she only used the drug a few times.

All employees who tested positive of illegal drug use during the random drug test conducted by Cebu Provincial Anti-drug Abuse Office (CPADAO) will be required to undergo rehabilitation.

In Naga City, five job order employees tested positive for using shabu during the CPADAO’s random drug testing in Ginatilan, Tabuelan, Naga, Dalaguete and Pinamungajan this month.

CPADAO chief Ivy Durano-Mecca said that they were preparing to conduct random drug tests on eight more province LGUs.

On drug surrenderers in the province, Davide said the Capitol has community-based rehabilitation programs for them.

He said CPADAO chief had already assessed that most surrenderers were only casual drug users and could be treated as outpatients in the community-based rehabilitation program.