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BY PRINCE GOLEZ, Manila Reporter
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MANILA – The sprawling military camp in Jamindan, Capiz might become the site of a drug rehabilitation center.
A “mega rehabilitation facility” has been built at the military camp in Fort Magsaysay in Laur, Nueva Ecija.
But the Department of Health (DOH) was planning to put up three more — one each in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao — said Secretary Paulyn Ubial.
“It’s being heard now. It was approved by [the House of Representatives]. It’s now in the Senate,” Ubial told reporters. “We just completed our committee hearing on our budget. For plenary na lang siya in November. [We hope] ma-approve.”
With a budget of around P1.6 billion, the government aims to complete these facilities by December 2017.
Camp Macario Peralta Jr. — the third largest military camp in the Philippines — and another one in Carmen, Bohol were being considered as possible locations for the Visayas center, said Ubial.
Two additional centers will be erected in either Calauag in Quezon or Bataan for Luzon, and Malungon, Sarangani or Bukidnon for Mindanao.
“After the surge of patients, the facilities will be turned over to the military,” Ubial said. “This is just for a short period, from three to four years. After that, stable na.”
Already, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the establishment of a rehabilitation center for drug addicts at Camp Peralta.
The center would be fenced with barbed wire, the President told members of the Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry (Spearhead) Division based at the military reservation during a visit just this Aug. 5.
Of the military camp’s 36,969 square kilometer land area, the Philippine Army occupies 33,310 hectares.
Duterte’s plan will ease concerns on where to put the thousands of drug users surrendering to various police units across Western Visayas. There are no community-based drug rehabilitation centers in the region.
There is only one government-run drug rehabilitation center in Western Visayas — the Substance Abuse Treatment and Rehabilitation Center in Barangay Rumbang, Pototan, Iloilo — but it can accommodate not more than 100 clients./PN
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