WITH the nationwide problem on illegal drugs, a whole-of-nation approach is also needed to combat its ill effects aside from implementing effectively the programs for rehabilitation and reintegration for drug surrenderers, an official said.
Ramon Cualoping III, assistant secretary and Chief Brand Integrator of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, told the media during the opening of Rehabinasyon: The First National Anti-Drugs Summit at Marco Polo Hotel Davao on Sunday, February 3, that there were a total of 42 member agencies which is under the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (Icad), which is working together to address the negative effects of illegal drugs.
"The approach now, we want to showcase to the world and to the rest of the country is that there's a whole-of-government and whole-of-nation approach that everyone is together now, 42 government agencies, first time in our country, and we are partnering with the civil society and the church," he said.
Cualoping added, "It takes whole of nation to fix this problem because the problem about drugs is not solitary, it is familial, it is communal, and it is an economic problem."
Cualoping said the staging of Rehabinasyon is the government's communication program to explain to the people the efforts of the Duterte administration in combatting the negative effects of drugs in the country, is also a way to gather all the government agencies and unify anti-drug efforts.
"As we all know, it is the top one of the priority programs of the President and admittedly, it has become very political kasi ang lagi lang lumalabas ay ang negative side ng illegal drugs. But actually ang purpose ng Rehabinasyon is to showcase the many good things done by our various government agencies," he said.
He said 90 percent of the government's effort now is on the rehabilitation and reintegration of the drug surrenderers though enforcement is the first step and is still an important phase. However, he said that the most challenging part is reforming, rehabilitate, and reintegrate the surrenderers back to the society.
"The war on drugs, it's not yet done, it is still ongoing. Tokhang was a very good benchmark operation. It gave us the baseline numbers because prior to Oplan Tokhang in 2016, we did not know that the drug problem was this huge," he underscored.
"The rehabilitation, reintegration program, it has always been there for the longest time but now, it has been given more focus under the Duterte administration," he said.
Statistics on illegal drugs
Based on the data presented on Sunday, February 3, since 2015 to September 2018, there had been a total of 171,964 drug personalities who were arrested during the conduct of 140,200 operations across the country with 226 foreign nationals who were likewise apprehended by authorities.
In the same coverage, the law enforcers had seized 4,589.64 kilos of shabu, 186.57 kilos of cocaine, 41,942 kilos of Ecstasy and 2,136.21 kilos of marijuana.
The Dangerous Drugs Board 2015 survey estimated about 1.8 million drug users while from 2017-2018 the drugs users/surrenderers are now at 1.6 million. These are personalities who voluntarily surrendered during Tokhang and pledged to stop their illegal activities.
