FORT MAGSAYSAY, Nueva Ecija—The opening of the giant 10,000-patient capacity drug rehabilitation center under construction inside this military camp, originally set last month and moved to Nov. 15, will push through on Nov. 29.
A technical working group from the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Department of Health said the Mega Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Center will become fully operational within this month.
Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial said the bed facilities for the rehab center would be provided by Chinese businessman and philanthropist Huang Rulun, a real estate developer who invested in 20 five-star hotels and 10 shopping malls in China.
Rulun, who also donated the left wing of the building and the female dormitory, is listed in the Hurun Philanthropy List for 13 consecutive years in China.
He ranks second in the latest list behind Alibaba Group Holdings, with total donations of more than $97 million for the construction of three high schools.
Rulun met with President Duterte thrice and asked how he could help address the drug problem in the country.
Construction of the project started last September after Ubial signed a Deed of Donation with Rulun.
The construction materials were imported from China and were previously used in rebuilding houses for victims of typhoon “Yolanda.”
The DOH used P15 million from the DOH’s Quick Response Fund to hire personnel in the facility.
The DOH is hiring 200 health workers to work in the facility aside from 200 to be provided by the government and another 200 from existing health facilities.
Ubial noted that since drug addiction has become a national health emergency because of the sheer number of surrenderers—some 790,000 as of the latest count—then the use of the QRF was justified.
She said the DOH was working with local government units, particularly barangays and municipal and city officials who would handle the community-based rehabilitation program, expected to cover an estimated over 95 percent to 98 percent of the surrenderers.
