To serve as a warning to others and to ensure that all city workers are drug free, about 150 employees of Carcar City Hall were made to undergo a surprise drug test, Monday, by Mayor Nicepuro Apura.
The number represents one-fourth of 600, Carcar City Hall’s total number of employees.
Results of the tests conducted by the city’s Anti-Drug Abuse Council will be out next week.
“Una, ma-trace nato og duna pa ba gyud nahabilin nga mogamit anang ginadiling drugas (First of all, we intend to trace if there are still people left using illegal drugs),” said Apura.
“If ever naay ma-found positive, casual or JO (job order), automatic undang gyud sa trabaho. But if regular, i-process pa na siya og investigation (If ever casual or job order workers will be found positive for drug use, they will be automatically fired. For regular employees, we need to go through the process of investigation).”
Apura hoped that the surprise drug tests will serve as a warning to those who are still planning to use illegal drugs.
The mayor said that those who might be found positive in the drug tests and subsequently relieved should go through rehabilitation and then see him again in two years’ time for possible reintegration into the city’s workforce.
“Ako gi advise-an sila nga kung kinsa tong mahibaw-an nga positive, kinahanglan mag bag-o mo, mu-reporma, dili na gyud mogamit. unya balika ko ninyo mga two years after (I advised those who will be found positive that they need to change, reform themselves not to use illegal drugs anymore.
Then come back to me two years after),” Apura explained.
Apura is now serving his third and last term as mayor of Carcar City, a component city of Cebu located approximately 30 kilometers south of Cebu City.
Yesterday’s random drug screening was the second conducted on Carcar City employees since last year.
Apura intends to conduct the drug screening each year as recommended by the Cebu Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Office (CPADAO) to all cities and towns of the province.
Last September 9, Carcar City’s most wanted alleged drug lord Merlito “Etot” Saducas, 54, was killed in an ambush by two men riding in tandem as he was driving his motorcycle along Barangay Valencia, Carcar City.
Police investigators believed the killing was perpetrated by Saducas’ cohorts for failing to remit illegal drug proceeds to his boss.
Saducas was linked to the group of self-confessed drug lord Franz Sabalones — a Cebuano drug personality who was on President Rodrigo Duterte’s narco-list.
Prior to his death, police said, Saducas continued to expand his drug dealings through a sizeable network of persons involved in the illegal drug trade and delivered illegal drugs not only in Carcar but also to neighboring towns in southern Cebu.
Police believe that while Saducas’ death managed to paralyze the operations of his group, it will not be long before another drug lord sits in his place.