THE Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) has granted the City Government a P10 million fund for the construction of its P35 million Bacolod City Drug Rehabilitation Center to be situated in Barangay Alijis.
Secretary Catalino Cuy, chairman of the DDB, and Mayor Evelio Leonardia will lead the groundbreaking ceremony for the rehabilitation center Friday, August 17, at 1:30 p.m.
Also gracing the ceremonies are Undersecretary Earl Saavedra executive director of DDB; Melanie Castillo, head of DDB Budget and Finance; Representative Greg Gasataya, Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran, and other officials.
The rehab center, which will have an administration building, male and female quarters, multi-purpose and mess building, and pavilion, will be constructed at the city-government owned lot at the City Agriculture Office Demo Farm.
The project was proposed by the City Anti-Drug Abuse Council (Cadac), chaired by the mayor.
It will cater to Bacolod drug surrenderers with severe substance use disorder.
Uy will give the P10 million check to the City Government during the groundbreaking ceremony. The City Government will shoulder the remaining P25 million.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) is making Bacolod City the pilot site of the Balay Silangan Reformation Program in the Visayas.
“Bacolod City is being considered for the program’s pilot implementation in the Visayas since the city actively supports the government’s anti-drug campaign,” Aquino said in a letter to the mayor dated June 5.
Other Balay Silangan pilot sites are located in Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija for Luzon; Caloocan City for the National Capital Region; and Malungon, Sarangani Province for Mindanao.
For the city’s support to the anti-drug campaign, Leonardia cited, among others, the choice of the DDB for Bacolod as the only city to host the 2017 International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (IDADAIT) in June last year, with 17,000 participants.
The Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) and the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) had also chosen Bacolod as one of the first venues for “Rehabinasyon,” a holistic approach in eliminating the country’s drug problem that puts premium on the rehabilitation of drug surrenderers, last March.
“The focus of our city’s anti-drugs campaign is the barangays. We will endeavor to declare as drug-free as many of our barangays as soon as possible,” Leonardia said. (PR)