“He was an advocate of rehabilitation.”
“He was an advocate of rehabilitation.”
The untimely death of former La Salette priest Bob Garon reminds so much of DARE (Drugs and Alcohol Rehabilitation Foundation), a non-government foundation which primarily is dedicated to rehabilitate drug users and addicts. I used to be its vice-president.
Bob Garon took me in to promote DARE to the business community. He needed help in his efforts to promote DARE which needed funding assistance. San Miguel Corporation became DARE’s main financier. All that the government could do to help DARE with the growing problem of illegal drugs was to get assistance from the Dangerous Drugs Board and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. In fact, if I recall correctly, there were special judges commissioned by the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court to accept drug-related cases. When there was a need for it, to have drug users get rehabilitated at DARE. These special judges were also commissioned to accept voluntary commitment by parents who wanted their children drug users and addicts into DARE. In fact, the government set aside a two-hectare lot somewhere in Quezon City for the DARE Foundation.
I recall Garon used to get assistance from big hospitals in Metro Manila to set aside their basements to confine drug users and addicts. But soon, Garon gave that up because drug pushers and syndicates also penetrated those hospital basements. Commitment of drug users and addicts at DARE depended on how much parents could afford to take care of board and lodging.
Garon did not have a big staff simply because that would lose money of having helpers and nurses, doctors, and specialists on psychology and psychiatry. There was a La Salette priest, George Loiselle, helping Garon occasionally, but not permanently. DARE did not only isolate drug users, but provided treatment which was a Herculean effort since drug addiction is a physical and psychological problem and admittedly a big job to tackle.
Knowing the profile of drug users and addicts, Garon adopted a cure from the United States and Europe on how to break open that shell that drug addicts built for themselves to continue with their addiction.
First, you have to know the profile of drug users and drug addicts. When a boy or girl starts isolating himself or herself from his family, you must know that there is a problem. And when the boy or girl starts to have failing grades in school, there must be a big problem. When he or she starts stealing things from the house to sell and finance his or her habit, then there is a big problem because sooner or later, a drug addict becomes also a drug pusher to finance the addiction. Peer pressure or “barkada” contributes a lot.
The principal targets of drug pushers and drug syndicates were usually exclusive schools like La Salle, Ateneo and girls schools like Assumption, Miriam College, then known as Maryknoll, St. Theresa and gated villages in Makati where the rich and famous used party drugs, like cocaine, ecstasy mostly for fun. Marijuana, which was then principally grown in the Cordilleras, was the cheapest illegal drug, until the Chinese cartels and syndicates manufactured deadlier but cheaper drugs from “the golden triangle,” like “shabu.”
And soon enough, shabu proliferated as the street drug that was even imported from China through the Bureau of Customs.
If you wonder why shabu is more often than not the drug used until this date nationwide, it is because shabu from China continues to be smuggled through Customs in cooperation between drug syndicates and corrupt Customs people. Billions of pesos come in from well-known cartels and syndicates “Bamboo,” “Triad,” and even Mexico’s “Sinaloa.” The drug business is a multi-billion dollar industry that affects not only Southeast Asia, but the US and Europe.
Illegal drug use in the Philippines was at its height during the regime of President PNoy Aquino when the country even became a transhipment point to the US and Europe. It was only President Duterte who declared war on illegal drugs, which resonated with the people that elected him into office. His campaign promise was to end illegal drugs, criminality and government corruption. Big words indeed, but he soon realized that illegal drugs, criminality and government corruption could not be easily ended and eradicated. Why?
Because Duterte made a big mistake in fighting change.
Duterte’s war on illegal drugs was based on killing all pushers, users and even the drug addict, some 8 to 9 million of them, which became a war of impunity in almost every barangay nationwide. War on drugs is to Duterte, for which has become his biggest fear before the International Court of Justice which blamed him for crimes against humanity because of extra-judicial killings (EJK).
The approach of Duterte in his war against illegal drugs is wrong since experts in other countries know in fighting illegal drugs, there are four components, prevention, law enforcement, prosecution and rehabilitation, the last one rehabilitation..
For as long as there is a demand for illegal drugs, the cartels and drug syndicates will always provide the supply. It’s a matter of supply and demand, my gulay!
It’s for this reason why I am writing this column, a tribute to former priest Bob Garon, who showed us how important rehabilitation is in an attempt to fight or have a war on illegal drugs. Drug users and drug addicts are the victims, not the culprits.
Going back to DARE Foundation, which was the first attempt of a non-government organization to end the illegal drug scourge, for somebody who has been there and seen it all, then former priest Garon adopted a drastic method to break that shell that drug addicts surround them with. He would invite the parents of the addict to a closed-door meeting where Garon asked the addict why he or she took drugs. It was a heart-rending confrontation between parents and addicts where the latter would tell the parents why they went to drugs because while his father was busy working, his mother would spend the whole day playing mah-jong with her friends. Worse still, when an addict blames his father for having a mistress. The addicts often take drugs as some kind of retaliation to the father. After that confrontation would come reconciliation, which solves 50 percent of the problem. Often, it’s “barkada” or peer pressure why boys and girls take drugs.
At times it would take some more months for an addict to stay at DARE for about a year, to “graduate.” Graduating from DARE, however, was no assurance that the addict won’t go to drugs again.
I would say that our batting average of total rehabilitation was 75 percent. I have known former graduates of DARE dying of drug overdose. Rehabilitation is no guarantee that the addict won’t go back to drugs. But at least, there’s a chance to make addicts to be useful productive citizens.
It is for this reason why in my previous columns, I have been advocating for a private-public partnership in the building of community-based drug rehab centers. Why community-based drug rehab centers? It’s because rehabilitation of drug users depends a lot on family support. That’s why there is a need for community based centers.
I recall that I even went to New York to learn more about drug rehabilitation. I met Charlie Devlin, president of Daytop Village Rehabilitation Center under then New York Monsignor William O’Brien, Bishop of New York who later came to the Philippines to visit DARE to learn more about drug rehabilitation. Santa Banana, I spent a weekend at upstate New York Daytop Village Rehab Center with drug addicts to learn more about the drug problem and rehabilitation. In other words, the problem of illegal drugs is more than killing drug pushers and drug addicts. It’s even more than going after the cartels and syndicates. It’s an effort of both the government and society itself. Even rehabilitation is not a perfect solution, but it stops the demand.
As I said, this column is dedicated to the late priest Bob Garon, who fell in love with his female assistant. Garon sought dispensation from the Vatican and Garon married his assistant. They had two lovely daughters. Bob then for sometime wrote columns for newspapers and went on advocating drug rehabilitation over television as a means of battling the illegal drug scourge.