CAMARINES Sur Rep. Luis Ray Villafuerte urged on Sunday local government executives to help the Cabinet-level task force carry out its immense job of overseeing the establishment of drug rehabilitation centers across the country.
Villafuerte, House committee on appropriations vice chairman, called on governors, mayors and vice mayors to tap barangay health workers in the war against illegal drugs by training and equipping them with the knowledge needed to treat outpatient drug rehabilitation cases at the grassroots level.
He has filed a bill creating a drug rehabilitation center in his province’s town of Libmanan, stressing local officials have “an obligation and duty to their constituents to support President Rodrigo Duterte’s war against narco-traffickers and their cohorts in the government and the police force.”
“As a former governor who dealt with drug-related crimes, I bore witness as to how illegal drugs have broken families apart, and destroyed the future of young, promising men and women. We owe it to the people we serve in our communities to fully support the President’s war against illegal drugs,” he said.
Local officials are the front-liners in the fight against the drug menace, he added.
Deputy Speaker and Batangas Rep. Raneo Abu filed House Bill No. 9 to establish more rehabilitation centers in the country.
“We call for the immediate passage of this bill so drug dependents will have a greater opportunity for rehabilitation and eventual reintegration to the community. With an appropriate public-private sector, we can collectively help drug victims to get back to the path of recover,” he said.
Quezon City Rep. Winston Castelo, House committee on Metro Manila development chairman, authored House Resolution No. 271 seeking the establishment of a drug rehabilitation center in every highly urbanized city.
“It is very important that concerned agencies be on top of the drug rehabilitation program’s implementation. The war on drugs doesn’t stop on the enforcement aspect. It must end on the rehabilitation,” said Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, House committee on dangerous drugs chairman.
Villafuerte’s call was in response to Executive Order No. 4 signed by the President on Oct. 11 for the establishment of at least a drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation center in each of the country’s 81 provinces, particularly in the Visayas and Mindanao.
