THE Davao City Anti-Drug Abuse Council (Cadac) reported around 900 business establishments were not able to undergo training for drug-free workplaces.
Participation in a drug-free workplace seminar is a requirement before a business can acquire or renew its business permit for 2020.
City Ordinance 0506-13 is an ordinance requiring all companies employing more than 10 persons to have an anti-drug abuse program or a drug-free workplace policy. They must have a program to educate their employees, their families, and the communities on the ill-effects of illegal drugs, how to treat drug addiction and how to recover from or manage it.
The city ordinance was further fortified by the Labor Department Order Number 53-03 or called the Guidelines of the Implementation of Drug-Free Workplace policies and programs only for the private sectors.
Under the law, companies are mandated to submit their drug-free workplace policy and a three-year drug-free workplace plan as the basis for the monitoring.
Ronaldo Rivera, program director of Tabangan Atong Reformist Aron Naa'y Asenso (Tara Na!) of Cadac, bared to the media that only 1,872 companies have complied with the ordinance out of the 2,798 service-oriented firms listed by the Business Bureau.
“The Philippine Anti-Drug strategy stated na the failure of the whole country is implementing education. Since embedded naman siya, Republic Act 9165 already says there na dapat naay (should be) promotion of drug-free workplace policy and program,” Rivera said.
The City Government of Davao allocated P2 million for the information dissemination of a drug-free workplace.
The drug-free workplaces training was provided by schools such as Ateneo De Davao University, University of Mindanao, Holy Cross of Davao College (HCDC), and University of Immaculate Concepcion (UIC). The proceeds from the training will go to the community program aligned with their anti-drug campaigns.
“Although we are short for about 900, we’re working it out with PDEA (Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency) on how to conduct random drug testing... We are calling these companies to get in touch with us because ang consequence will be ma-inconvenient and magiging conditional kanilang renewal (the consequence is that their renewal will be inconvenient and conditional),” Rivera said.
For their education program, he shared that they have translated the preventive education modules from Grade 4 to Grade 12 into Arabic and can now be made available in the Madrasa.
River further said that as of December 2019, in their treatment and rehabilitation for their Tara Na program, there are a total of 12,381 reformist enrolled in Phase 1, which is Primary Care for six months; 1,823 who advanced to Phase 2, which involves aftercare program; and 103 for the Phase 3 for the Continuum Preventive Healthcare.