For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey
NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS
In response to the no-nonsense campaign of the Duterte administration to
address the country’s serious drug abuse problem, police authorities and local
government units have launched a vigorous campaign to apprehend known drug
pushers and users and immobilize them either by shooting them down if they
resist, making them sign a document so they will refrain from selling or using
drugs or to change their evil ways by seeking treatment for their chemical
dependency.
This news item appears in one national on-line news service of a major TV
network:
“The Philippine National Police in Bohol said the
number of drug users and pushers who surrendered this week already reached
3,000, a report on News To Go on Friday said.
“In Tagbilaran, the pews inside a church were all
taken as drug users and pushers surrendering to authorities filled the place.
“The surrenderees signed affidavits saying they
will change their ways.
“No rehabilitation center, however, is available to
take in all those who surrendered, the report said.
Police resorted to asking barangay officials to
monitor those [those who surrendered] in the meantime.
“One psychologist said however that it is important
to have a rehabilitation center to house [them]since the process of recovery is
long, the report said.”
Of course, the reporter was wrong in saying there
is no drug rehab center in the province. Well, there is in fact one in Laya,
Baclayon run jointly by the Family and Recovery Management (FARM) center in
Minglanilla, Cebu and the It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment Center in
Ozamis City. Its establishment has been brokered by our NGO, the Bohol Local
Development Foundation (BLDF) so that the
family-owned Balay Kahayag retreat house and training center could be converted
into a drug rehab facility.
We devoted 35 columns, a good 47% of the total, solely
on the need for a drug rehab facility in the province since we started writing
for this paper on 11 January 2015. It somehow makes us sad that the reporter is
not aware the facility now exists after a rather long and tortuous journey
taken to put it in place.
Yes, after a year-long series of activities
consisting of visits to rehab centers in the Visayas and Mindanao,
consultations with possible stakeholders and partners and lots of research mostly
internet-based, we were able to negotiate successfully with two of the centers
we visited to use the existing Balay Kahayag facilities (a multi-purpose hall
good for 100 participants; an activity center for 25 clients; a dormitory good
for 38 in-house guests; a two-story guest house).
This facility was named the FARM It Works Balay
Kahayag Chemical Dependency Treatment Center or FITWBK. For those who have
difficulty remembering the acronym, it is known simply as Balay Kahayag or BK.
A company whose younger technical officers tested
positive on drugs virtually pressured the staff to start admission and
treatment operations in November last year. All these early birds had completed
by this time the initial six-month treatment and the three-month after-care regimen.
Around the time of the proclamation of President Digong Duterte, who promptly
announced an iron fist policy against drug addiction, occupancy at the facility
soared to almost full capacity of 30 clients.
Despite lack of advertisements and promotions,
families with one or two members having a drug addiction problem, swarmed the
facility with requests for treatment and accommodation. In our column of 22 May
2016, we noted:
“The
existing 30-client drug rehab center in our province, put up by two private
entities from Ozamis City and Minglanilla, Cebu, even if fully operational, will
not make a dent on the current drug addiction problem in Bohol. We need more
than one center or an expanded one to cope with the problems created by the
illegal drug trade which has taken seemingly secure root in the province during
recent years.”
Meanwhile,
as a vital milestone in the history of Bohol’s first and only drug rehab
center, Fr. Val Pinlac who heads the Vatican-funded Bohol Rehabilitation and
Rebuilding Project (BRRP) has been elected Chair of the newly-registered Board
of Trustees of the non-stock and non-profit Foundation for FITWBK. This marks a
new milestone in the history of this vital facility.
On the
prodding of Fr. Val, we prepared with BRRP staff a proposal to an international
NGO, the For a Better Tomorrow (FBT) that when approved, will enable FITWBK to
expand its intake capacity from the current 30 to 50 clients.
It will also
ensure that the FITWBK can admit more clients from families who cannot afford
the PHP 25,000 per month fee.
I think many people agree that putting drug
users in their respective homes after signing agreement with police authorities
that they will no longer use shabu or other illegal drugs is not a viable
solution to the drug addiction problem in our province or, for that matter,
anywhere in the Philippines where police authorities, eager to please the new
national leadership, are eager to arrest and even kill many drug addicts.
It is common
knowledge that drug addiction is a brain disease and time is needed to repair
what has been damaged by repeated drug use. Hence, in most cases, residential
or in-house treatment for drug addiction is needed.
Some drug
abuse cases may not require confinement in a drug rehab facility, but diagnosis
is still needed and a mode of treatment is required rather than mere physical
confinement. The other risk is that it will be quite impossible to monitor
individually the movement of thousands of drug abusers while they are supposed
to be technically in restricted movement in their homes or local communities.
Since we
cannot fast-track the construction of drug rehab centers in relation to the
current demand, it is best to take simple and doable steps to meet the need for
diagnosis of each client to determine whether or not it is best for the client
to get home-based counselling/treatment or be confined in a drug rehab facility.
This will
require the recruitment, training and deployment of an inter-agency team given full
administrative support to be able to carry its day-to-day tasks. Membership in
this team can be systematically planned by provincial authorities with each municipality
represented in its team to ensure immediate replication of approaches and
strategies for dealing with drug dependents and their immediate families who,
in most cases, are themselves co-dependents rather than facilitators of the
treatment and healing process.
It is highly
recommended that the provincial government designate a core team tasked with responsibility
to implement a workable strategy in dealing with those who have been arrested
and detained in their respective homes.
Potential
members of this inter-agency core team need to be of one mind and have the same
basic skills and attitude that will enable them to perform their tasks
effectively and efficiently. A ten-day training
for the team can be conducted which will include the following:
- Introduction to Drug Addiction Prevention Science
- Basic
Counselling Skills for Addiction Professionals
- Community
Outreach
- Ethics
for Addiction Professionals
- Role
and Tasks of Recovery Coaches
To ensure a pool of trained service
providers, it is important that the initial training involve as many as 30 to
40 participants. The most advanced of them in terms of KAS (Knowledge, Attitude
and Skill) may be recruited and deployed and given advance skills training. A
mobile provincial core team of trainers and facilitators can then organize and
train their counterparts per LGU or a cluster of LGUs.
One of our partner drug rehab centers,
the one based in Ozamis City, the It Works Chemical Dependency Treatment
Center, has scheduled a hands-on workshop with the DOH as partner on the
requirements or guidelines in establishing a drug rehab facility. The venue is
right at their center in Ozamis City scheduled on 12 to 14 July. For details,
email the Convenor, Rene Franciso, at renefranph@yahoo.com.
It is
important at this critical stage for each LGU to establish prototype Outreach and
Drop-In Centers (ODICs) to provide systematic counselling, diagnostic and
referral services to families burdened with the drug abuse problem. I have
written about ODICs several times in this column (02 May 2015; 30 May 2015; 13
June 2015). We have provided several options to establish this facility to
complement the services of the drug rehab center. Our NGO has provided
estimates on how either the LGU or the Church can establish this facility which
can complement efforts to do something about the current phenomenon of having
thousands of drug pushers and users coming out from the dark, shedding their anonymity
and face either rehabilitation or deterioration in their condition.
May we all
be guided, LGUs and non-LGUs alike, to make the wisest course of action against
this nightmare brought about by the drug menace in our midst. For comments,
email: npestelos@gmail.com. ###
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