Mandaue police to intensify drug rehabilitation program

AMIDST the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) temporary suspension of its campaign against illegal drugs or “Oplan Tokhang”, the Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO) is eyeing to intensify its rehabilitation program for the city’s drug surrenderers.

MCPO spokesperson Police Chief Insp. Mercy Villaro said that their efforts to restore and gradually reintegrate drug dependents to the society will not relent until all of them will stop using drugs.

“The red light signal is only on our drug operations, but our rehab programs will still continue,” Villaro said.

Villaro pointed out that among their continuous drug rehab programs are Zumba and Bible-sharing sessions which regularly happen every Thursday.

“As a matter of fact, we are now at the second wave of our community rehab program,” she said.

As of January 19, MCPO has a total of 5,035 drug surrenderers.

Aside from the fact that the city has been faring well in its bid to bust illegal drugs since the campaign began in July 2016, Villaro said they cannot just put their rehab efforts on hold since the Mandaue City has been chosen by the Department of Health (DOH) as the pilot city for its special drug rehab program called “ASSIST-BI.”

ASSIST–BI or the Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test-Brief Intervention is a specialized program designed to screen a surrenderer’s problem or risky use of psychoactive substance and assist one to the fitting treatment depending on his needs.

A surrenderer will be categorized under low-, moderate- or high-risk user after the interview and profiling.

“I believe Mandaue has been chosen by DOH because it’s not a difficult city to manage,” Villaro said.

There have been 655 surrenderers in the city who have completed the first wave of the program.

Days after the suspension order was released, MCPO also decided to zero in on their drug education and anti-criminality campaigns alongside combating other crimes such as theft, robbery, murder and illegal gambling, among others.

“We wanted to focus on educating the youth about the ill effects of drugs. This is the best opportunity to teach them about drugs and prevent them from going astray,” Villaro said.