calbayog-city-official-sealCATBALOGAN CITY, Samar, Sept 23 (PIA)—Calbayog City local government earmarked some P 600,000.00 for drug dependents who yielded out of the ‘tokhang’ operations.

Earlier, about 1500 Calbayognons in different levels of illegal drug involvement submitted themselves to the police. They are now lined up for assessment, says a news report from Eleen Lim of Radyo ng Banyan.

Some seven personnel from the City Drug Abuse Prevention and Rehabilitation Office (CDAPRO) underwent training at Dulag Treatment and Rehabilitation Center in Leyte on Intervention Programs for drug dependents.

According to CDAPRO Chief Dr. Teodoro Fortaleza, during assessment, the drug dependents will be categorized into four: the low-risk, moderate risk, high -risk and very high-risk. The last two categories will be admitted to the “Bahay ni Kuya” Day time Rehabilitation program, where, for six months, the drug dependents will be reporting daily to a school-like rehabilitation program .

Calbayog City Mayor Ronaldo B. Aquino.
Calbayog City Mayor Ronaldo B. Aquino.

Fortaleza added that his personnel will be augmented by nurses from the national government’s Nurses Deployment Program (NDP) who were trained at the Dulag Rehab Center early this month.

Assessment is still going on where presently, out of the more than a thousand self confessed drug dependents, close to 500 have been assessed.

Aside from the P 600 thousand budget of Mayor Ronald Aquino, Fortaleza said that they are also banking on the Philipine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and Philhealth to help fund the program, since this is a new program and was not included in the city’s Budgetary Appropriations for this year.

Out of the 1,963 persons who have undergone drug testing at CDAPRO from January to August of this year, Dr. Fortaleza revealed that seven has been found to be positive of methamphetamine hydro chloride locally known as shabu.

Meanwhile, Aquino himself submitted to a drug test where he proved negative on illegal drugs. (Nimfa B. Quirante/PIA 8-Samar)