THE drug surrenderers in the municipality of Tublay, Benguet, are given a new lease of life through spiritual counseling.
“The word of God is more powerful than the sword and it is for this reason why we want drug surrenderers to undergo Christian teachings instead of using illegal drugs,” said Tublay Municipal Police Office Deputy Chief of Police Jaime Guminigan.
Since September 9 to present, at least 100 persons underwent drug rehabilitation following the implementation of “Oplan Tokhang” with most of them coming from Ambassador, Tuel, and Kaponga.
“Since their surrender, all of them underwent our community-based program which is geared towards an effective series of spiritual counseling through our Christian Action Team,” Guminigan explained.
Of the 100 surrenderers, 57 have graduated from the community-based rehabilitation program, 39 are set to graduate soon, while four others have just began with the program.
“We continue to monitor all of those who have undergone the program to which there are no reports of them going back to their illegal vices but instead are now active in joining spiritual activities,” Guminigan said.
Aside from spiritual counseling, the surrenderers have been a recipient of scholarships coming from the Technical Education Skills Development Authority, aside from livelihood programs provided by the municipality wherein 30 of them are engaged in backyard pig raising.
The Tublay police noted that most drug surrenderers were hooked to methamphetamine hydrochloride, locally known as "shabu."
Guminigan said Tublay is drug free since most of the surrenderers do not reside in the municipality.
“Considering most of the surrenderers in the municipality do not reside here, we can consider the municipality as drug free to this date,” Guminigan added.