‘Self-sufficient’ rehab center in upland Cebu City

DINO

A 50-hectare government-owned drug rehabilitation center that will provide livelihood programs for drug surrenderers will be constructed in an upland barangay in Cebu City in the first quarter of 2017. According to Presidential Assistant for the Visayas Michael Dino, the facility will be built in Sitio Cantipla in Barangay Tabunan, around 20 kilometers from downtown Cebu City.

The facility will be patterned after the Fazenda da Esperanza, a unique type of rehab center in Milagros, Masbate province, that houses a farm and considers manual labor as therapy for drug dependents.

There, patients are taught to raise cattle for meat and dairy production, and grow rice for their own consumption which lowers the cost of living of patients and thus lowers their monthly payment for the treatment to only P2,000.

“(This practice) gives self-esteem to the patients since they are very insecure right now because they are (seen) as menace to society,” Dino said.

Dino said they are finalizing the specific details of the rehab facility, including the budget. A significant portion of the 50-hectare property will be allocated for a farm where drug surrenderers can learn livelihood skills, like planting crops, while undergoing rehabilitation treatment.

“Drug surrenderers need to work. They should have livelihood programs like planting. It cannot be just mentoring and teaching them about things. They have to work,” Dino told reporters.

This will bring to two, the drug rehab facilities which will be put up in the Visayas, one of which will be in Bohol province.

Another rehab facility will be opened inside a military camp in Cebu.

“We still have to meet with Major General Raul del Rosario (AFP Central Command chief), but he has a list (of possible military camps) already. They will set aside ten hectares for the drug rehab center,” Dino said.

These drug rehab centers aim to house at least 200,000 drug surrenderers in the Visayas.