EDITORIAL — Drugs and barangay officials

According to the police, around 20 barangay officials in Central Visayas are now being monitored for their past involvement in drug activities.

"In Central Visayas we are monitoring more or less 20 barangay officials which were allegedly had past involvement in illegal drugs, some of them actually surrendered and cooperated and some of them were arrested,” Police Lt. Col. Gerard Ace Pelare, spokesman of Police Regional Office-7, said in a report in this newspaper.

While Pelare refused to identify the officials, he said five of them are from Cebu.

Like policemen, barangay officials shouldn’t be involved in drugs. In the spectrum, they belong to the group people who should be farthest away from it.

A barangay official who is involved in drugs in whatever degree is a danger. It is highly likely that that person might have the inclination to look the other way when it comes to barangay issues involving drugs, or he might even be involved in proliferating this scourge himself. If this is the case, imagine how much protection he can give to a drug operation.

It is no better even if a barangay official is just using drugs without getting involved in its actual business operations. There is no telling what happens when someone gets addled, but judgment is usually impaired. We cannot tell if he is of sound mind at all times, and most of the time it’s the barangay officials the ordinary folk turn to in times of crises and need.

If there are “around” or “more or less” 20 barangay officials in Central Visayas alone, how many more such executives are suspect around the country?

It is good that the Department of the Interior and Local Government has already ordered all its attached agencies and bureaus as well as all local government units to conduct random drug testing.

With any luck they will net some barangay officials –or, who knows, perhaps even city and provincial officials-- who are setting a bad example and shouldn’t be working in public office.