For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey
NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS
From the euphoria of
being greeted last week by hundreds of Facebook friends on our 73rd
birthday, we have been suffering emotional reversals lately for receiving
almost zero support to our advocacy that we build a drug rehabilitation center
in Bohol to address present and future problems caused by the alarming increase
of illegal drug users in the province.
I think most people
believe that effective law enforcement and good parenting will be enough to
solve this problem. Surely these two measures can help by addressing the supply
and demand side of the illegal drug trade. Equally important, however, is to
address existing and potential social problems created by having hundreds of
drug abusers in practically all barangays in the province.
Our fellow
columnist, Donald Borja Sevilla, notes in his column last week that the drug
abuse problem “continues to plague and haunt us like cancer eating us from within.”
He also validates what everyone of us seems to know, although we do not speak
of it openly: “The problem is far reaching that nary a community is without a
pusher or user.” In many cases, according
to some informants, the users become pushers to be able to afford the high
costs of drugs.
The net objective
effect of such a problem is that more than 50% of crimes committed in Bohol are
drug-related, according to recent media accounts citing police reports. And
this fact should be enough to prod us to action. It is quite significant to
note that the drug-related killings and the images of young people shot dead in
broad daylight in busy streets in the city, and those in other streets of
distant towns or barangays, have not resulted in any kind of moral outrage on
the part of Boholanos in general.
There seems be a
conspiracy of silence among most sectors regarding this growing drug menace in
our midst. We have not heard the collective voice of the Churches and religious
groups, political parties and their leaders, the youth and their campus and
off-campus organizations.
Our advocacy, as
articulated in previous columns, is that we must do something about making
available treatment services to as many drug abusers now, especially those
coming from indigent families and remote communities who cannot afford the high costs of such treatment in the cities
of Cebu, Manila, Davao, and Tagaytay.
If we do not build
our own drug rehabilitation center in Bohol, preferably run by the private
sector, but enjoying the combined support of the Government, the Church, civil
society, and academic institutions, the social problems created by the increased
use of illicit drugs , such as rising crimes, wasted human resources mostly
among the affected youth, as well as more unemployment and dependency, will be impossible
to address in the coming years.
Since December last
year, we have consulted with representatives of various sectors and spent hours
over several months studying the operations of a noted drug rehabilitation
center in Davao, and have formulated a total of five draft proposals on how we
can establish a similar facility in our province, but except for a few comments
from friends, these proposals have not merited any kind of serious attention
from representatives of key sectors in our province.
In the latest draft
proposal which we submitted last week, and published in the social media, we
reduced the time frame from three years to one year in building the basic
infrastructure for a rehabilitation center; at least one outreach and drop-in
center preferably based in a faith-based organization during the initial
period; providing for remuneration of the medical and administrative support
staff; training the core staff and community facilitators who will run future
drop-in centers and conduct as soon as possible an intensive campaign on drug
prevention and treatment; and the conduct of a fund campaign to produce a trust
fund to support clients from indigent families and remote communities.
The total cost of
the project has been reduced from Php 40 million to Php 15 million In our opinion, the important thing is to build soonest the drug
rehabilitation facility and at least one outreach and drop-in center so that
the paid staff and volunteers will gain additional skills and confidence in
conducting consultations, assessment and referrals, as well as performing treatment
and post-treatment tasks, as soon as possible.
Despite the vast
silence that has greeted our draft proposals up to this time since five months
ago, we have remained optimistic that on their own the key sectors are actually
working out something to address the problems that we all think will get worst
as more people with drug abuse problems go untreated with their brain damaged
severely due to addiction.
At some future time,
the skewed perspective of drug abuse victims on their increasingly broken
relationship with their family, community and ultimately their own selves shall
have caused profound damage to society in general. Perhaps it will be the time that majority of
us will have the motivation to act on behalf of our beloved province.
By that time, we are
definitely wiser but too senile to be bothered by not being able to succeed in
our advocacy early enough. #Boholrehab
NMP/16 Apr
2015/10.05 p.m.
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