Surprise drug tests yield surprising result, 7 more City Hall employees are positive

Surprise drug test in Cebu City. | Photo Courtesy of Cebu City PIO

CEBU CITY, Philippines — More Cebu City Hall employees are failing the surprise drug tests conducted by the City Office for Substance Abuse Prevention (COSAP) in the past weeks.

COSAP head, Jonah John Rodriguez, expressed dismay over the turnout of the surprise drug test conducted at the Market Operations Division (MOD), where seven employees returned positive results.

Six of them are job-order employees while one is a regular employee. This would be the sixth regular employee that has failed the drug tests since the start of Mayor Edgardo Labella’s administration.

The job order employees will lose their positions without the need for a confirmatory test because illegal drug use is a violation of their contract.

For the regular employee, he or she will undergo an investigation to be conducted by the City Legal Office (CLO). The employee’s tenure will make it harder for the city government to immediately remove the individual from service.

The COSAP will wait for the confirmatory test result of the regular employee before proceeding to the investigation process to be done by the CLO.

The regular employee may be enrolled in the city’s in-patient or out-patient rehabilitation program depending on the recommendation of the CLO.

“I am dismayed because more individuals are failing the drug test. I thought they have learned from before when we removed the employees who failed the drug tests, but they have not,” said Rodriguez.

The COSAP will continue to conduct surprise drug tests in all city government offices and agencies as part of their drug-free campaign.

Rodriguez hopes that no more employees will fail the drug test, but he also said that the tests are a warning that the city will not tolerate illegal drug use among its employees. /rcg