CHIEF Supt. Debold Sinas, director of the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), agreed with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) on the need for mandatory drug testing in schools as a means to prevent drug addiction among students and school officials and personnel.
But Sinas, who used to head the Crime Laboratory in Camp Crame before his reassignment at PRO-7, said mandatory testing should not included graders to prevent the young ones from being traumatized.
“Baka ma-shock o baka ma-trauma (This could cause shock or trauma (among the children),” he said in an interview on Tuesday.
Drug testing among graders should only be done on a case to case basis, he added.
Atty. Arvin Odron, director of the Commission on Human Rights in Central Visayas (CHR-7), said PDEA should make sure that the rights of every child is protected during the conduct of any drug testing.
Mandatory testing, Sinas said, should only be imposed among junior and senior high school students, teachers and other school personnel who are already old enough to understand the purpose of the testing.