EDITORIAL - No room for drug users in city offices

According to a report by the City Office for Substance Abuse Prevention (COSAP), twenty employees of the city government were found positive for drug use after a series of drugs tests were conducted starting last November 8.

COSAP said the employees belonged to various city offices such as the Parks and Playgrounds Commission, the Department of General Services, the Prevention, Restoration, Order, Beautification, and Enhancement team, the Market Operations Division, and even the Office of the City Civil Registrar.

This number should be a cause for concern. Over the course of testing hundreds of city employees for drugs, finding one, two, or even three is understandable, but twenty? And in such a short span of time? Since the tests are still being conducted on other government offices, they may yet find even more drug users.

There is no doubt drugs is the great pestilence of our time. It removes reason from men, tears families apart, and robs youths of what could be a bright future. It has also fueled countless rapes, robberies, and senseless killings.

Unlike natural calamities and acts of terrorism that only happen every once in a while, the threat of drugs is always present.

Mayor Edgardo Labella has announced that those city employees found positive for drugs use will undergo due process, but those found positive a second time may face suspension or dismissal. He has even ordered the City Legal Office to determine why that many were found positive for drugs.

That is well and good, but the city government should go the extra mile and find out how people who use drugs were able to make it to city employment in the first place. Was it because of the chaos of post-election hiring? Or was it because there was no proper screening process to begin with?

The city should find the answers to these questions. There is just no justifiable reason for a person to turn to drugs in whatever form.

There should be no place for drug users in any government office, whether that office as small as a barangay center office run by the city, or as big as the Office of the Mayor itself.