SO THE Cebu Provincial Anti-Drug Abuse Office (Cpadao) is talking about 49 out of the 245 supposedly drug-free barangays losing the status that was accorded them, for one reason or another? To begin with, we frown on such a label as “drug-free” because it’s a shaky claim. Now Cpadao officials are asking the officials of the “now-no-longer” drug-free barangays to explain.

What makes Cpadao’s method of monitoring the barangays in the fight against illegal drugs interesting is that it is partly propaganda. But the problem with using propaganda in monitoring work is that Cpadao could end up like the boy in the fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” The public may no longer believe the results of its work.

In a way, nobody has, from the beginning, taken seriously the “drug-free” tag. To be fair, there are criteria in assessing a barangay’s status, but the barangay officials’ success in following the criteria loses its sting with the artificial declaration of their place as “drug-free.” Why not just label them as relatively successful in using the criteria in battling illegal drugs?

Again, there can be no drug-free barangay considering easy mobility and the pervasiveness of the problem on illegal drugs. A barangay may not have a drug user or drug peddler now but who’s to say a drug addict or drug peddler-relative of a resident won’t stray there or a resident himself won’t become one due to his contact with other people outside?

Frankly, the constant mention of the term “drug-free” and then “no longer drug-free” is grating to the ears. Why not just make things simpler by making the monitoring not about labels but about the actual effort of the barangay officials in battling the bane of illegal drugs?

The effort by barangay officials may fall short of totally ridding their jurisdictions of illegal drugs but if the effort shows, then reward them with a pat in the back, not with a certification that their jurisdiction is “drug-free.” We may just be fooling them and everybody else.