Cagayan de Oro City—Gingoog City Mayor Marie Guingona is implementing rehabilitation program for the city’s 2,000 identified drug dependents who turned themselves in to authorities in the last four weeks.
Guingona said the city police office and the Barangay Anti-Drug abuse council (Badac) will spearhead the 90-days community-based rehab program.
The rehab program will be implemented simultaneously in the 23 clustered barangays in the city.
“With a great hope that our drug addicts, whom we humanely called ‘participants,’ would no longer go back to their previous dangerous vice, this administration has providing a temporary barangay-based rehabilitation to those who have decided to reform,” she said.
Guingona said the city government has forged linkages with non-government organizations and national government agencies to build and equip rehab centers as long-term solutions to drug dependency.
“Definitely, change has come to those who want to be rehabilitated,” she said.
“The 1987 Philippine Constitution mandated local government units to promote the quality of life of the people, shall pursue undertakings to improve public morals, and shall maintain peace and order,” Guingona said.
“We join hands with the government of President Rodrigo Duterte in combating the illegal drug trade, our ‘Magpakabana Gingoognon Alang sa Kalinaw” (MGK) concerted efforts in the city’s 79 barangays.”
City Police Director Chief Inspector Esperidion Ragot Biado III applauded mayor’s program.
“Drug dependents seeking help and our city providing solutions to their problems is the best signal that our city has partially won the fight against illegal drugs,” Biado said.
The working MGK would be headed by the Office of the City Mayor, the City Police as overseer of the program. The Philippine Army under the 58th Infantry Battalion will be responsible for the daily physical regimen, the Badac for the close implementation, city health personnel for psycho-emotional reconditioning, religious groups like Gingoog Evangelical Pastors Association and Gingoog Movement Against Immorality and Drug Addiction for values formation and spiritual enhancement, business and private entities like Rotary Club for financial assistance, nutrition workers for checking attendance, barangay tanods for maintaining order, and community in general for uplifting support.