While the Palace has yet to decide on whether or not to approve the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s (PDEA) proposal to conduct drug tests on candidates, one has to question if the proposal will indeed cleanse the ranks of those aspiring for public office.
For one thing, the PDEA announcement itself already serves as an advance warning to candidates who are users to employ any means to hide their drug addiction.
That said, any “fasting” these candidates may do will surely take a toll on them and random drug tests will show whether they have drug addiction or not. But in deciding to first review PDEA’s proposal for drug tests on candidates, the Palace acknowledged a previous Supreme Court ruling that mandated drug tests for candidates as unconstitutional.
Still the Supreme Court is known to reverse its previous rulings — the cityhood of some local governments in the country including some in Cebu is an example — and anyone challenging the legality of drug tests among candidates at the High Tribunal may be headed for a disappointment.
Should the mandatory drug test push through, the question of who will conduct and pay for the drug tests had to be settled. It would be better if the candidates pay for the tests and with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) whittling down the list of candidates to those who can afford to wage a campaign, it won’t pose a problem for the aspirants.
And we’re talking about thousands of candidates running for national and local posts so how fast can the agencies tasked for this purpose be able to release the results and can these be counter-checked for confirmation?
We remember the story of a Cebu City barangay official whose initial drug tests were positive until these were verified in a private laboratory. The reason later given for the initial positive test results stemmed supposedly from the official’s use of maintenance medicines which in no way indicates that he was an illegal drug user.
That the results were somehow leaked to the media raised suspicions that the disclosure was politically motivated which, considering how heated the campaign can get, is something that should be avoided at all costs.
The last thing the voting public wants is for the results to be used as a weapon for political ends. Owing to public support in the war against illegal drugs — the killings is another issue — it isn’t hard to determine that voter sentiment will largely be in favor of drug tests for candidates.
And if only to reassure the voters of their integrity and fitness to govern, local and national candidates should submit voluntarily to drug tests whether it be scheduled or random.