JUSTICE Secretary Menardo Guevarra has backed a proposal of the Dangerous Drugs Board to enforce a “one-strike policy” in dismissing government workers who will be found positive for use of illegal drugs.
“I agree that a government official found positive for illegal drugs should be dismissed,” Guevarra said in an interview.
Guevarra was commenting on the position made by DDB Chairman Catalino Cuy that public officials and employees should be dismissed from the service once they are found positive for illegal drugs for the first offense.
“The government campaign against illegal drugs should include, first and foremost, its own ranks,” Guevarra stressed.
According to the Justice secretary, since drug use is a criminal offense, “any government official found guilty of a criminal offense, malversation, for example, is also administratively liable.”
“We are standing our ground. It’s a DDB regulation and we wanted to be strict with government officials,” Guevarra said.
But the Civil Service Commission issued last year a resolution to let drug-using government employees undergo treatment and rehabilitation.
Nonetheless, the DDB and CSC have agreed that all uniformed personnel should be subjected to the one-strike policy—police, military and law enforcement agents, including those of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the National Bureau of Investigation.
Since President Rodrigo Duterte’s all out war against illegal drugs, from July 2016 up to June this year, authorities have arrested a total of 147,802 individuals involved in illegal drugs.
Of this number, some 229 were elected officials, 52 were uniformed personnel, and 245 were government employees.
Around 102,630 anti-illegal drugs operations by joint law enforcement agencies were also conducted during the period.
These anti-drug operations also resulted in the killing of 4,354 drug personalities.
In the said period the total value of illegal drugs seized reached P21.29 billion while 2,738.73 kilos of methamphetamine hydrochloride, also known as “shabu,” with an estimated value of P14.66 billion were also seized. At least 714.92 kilograms of shabu were confiscated from smuggling and 318.39 kilograms were confiscated from manufacturing particularly from the dismantling of clandestine laboratories.
The anti-drug campaign als showed that 6,562 out of 42,036 barangays in the country were already cleared of illegal drugs from July 2016 to June 2018.