The triumph of drug syndicates to penetrate the barangays only reflects a loose guard of the community against the menace.
To reversing it, a community-based approach shall be employed will effectively shut the doors to illegal drugs.
In line with this, Governor Edgar Chatto emphasized that the approach against the drug menace should be community-based to effectively both the demand and supply factors in the illegal drugs trade.
The people should value hard work to resist the temptation of getting money fast by peddling drugs so that the supply from outside the province will have no conduit in the province. People must also realize the ill effects of drug abuse so that there will no demand for it and the illegal business will not prosper further.
The gap that needs to be resolved at present is the intervention to be undertaken after the surrender of a number of self-confessed drug personalities.
The governor said there should be an efficient method to monitor them, to provide support and the best approach is a community-based one.
Nestor Pestelos of the provincial government earlier this week facilitated the governor’s meeting with a drug addiction professional, Miriam Cue- -who is from Baclayon- -to present a proposed community-based approach to illegal drugs demand reduction and recovery.
Cue, chairperson of the Professional Regulatory Board of Psychology, along with Jerry Joseph Valderama from the New Day Recovery Center in Davao, met with the Technical Working Group of the provincial government to discuss how the proposed strategy will be integrated into the comprehensive anti-illegal drug campaign.
Bohol currently holds the highest record of surrenderers in the anti-illegal drug campaign in the region and among most immediate provincial local government initiatives to ensure recovery of surrenderers are the establishment of a Center for Drug Education and Counseling, a bootcamp, and the establishment of a drug rehabilitation center alongside national government plans to make use of AFP facilities in the management and reintegration of surrenderers.
It has been alarming that despite the aggressive campaign against illegal drugs and despite the threat of getting killed in the course of police operation or by drug ring hit squads, several tagged drug personalities continue with their trade.
On this, Chatto appeals to the households, parents, and the academe, among others, to complement the police effort in the fight against illegal drugs by establishing a strong community that is impermeable to drugs.
Chatto traced his all-out war against illegal drugs since his assumption as governor on his first term wherein he required candidates for police director to hold the commitment to rid the province of illegal drugs to get the post.
It just then became difficult to start as then police provincial director Constantino Barot had commented that he was surprised that majority of the police officers then had never experienced conducting drug raids and they had to start from square one.
The drug menace had already penetrated deep in society that the police already appealed to all sectors to complement their efforts to target both the demand and supply aspects of the illegal drugs trade.