Thursday, April 16, 2015

A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE

For The Bohol Tribune
In This Our Journey
NESTOR MANIEBO PESTELOS

From the euphoria of being greeted last week by hundreds of Facebook friends on our 73rd birthday, we have been suffering emotional reversals lately for receiving almost zero support to our advocacy that we build a drug rehabilitation center in Bohol to address present and future problems caused by the alarming increase of illegal drug users in the province.

I think most people believe that effective law enforcement and good parenting will be enough to solve this problem. Surely these two measures can help by addressing the supply and demand side of the illegal drug trade. Equally important, however, is to address existing and potential social problems created by having hundreds of drug abusers in practically all barangays in the province.

Our fellow columnist, Donald Borja Sevilla, notes in his column last week that the drug abuse problem “continues to plague and haunt us like cancer eating us from within.” He also validates what everyone of us seems to know, although we do not speak of it openly: “The problem is far reaching that nary a community is without a pusher or user.”  In many cases, according to some informants, the users become pushers to be able to afford the high costs of drugs.

The net objective effect of such a problem is that more than 50% of crimes committed in Bohol are drug-related, according to recent media accounts citing police reports. And this fact should be enough to prod us to action. It is quite significant to note that the drug-related killings and the images of young people shot dead in broad daylight in busy streets in the city, and those in other streets of distant towns or barangays, have not resulted in any kind of moral outrage on the part of Boholanos in general.

There seems be a conspiracy of silence among most sectors regarding this growing drug menace in our midst. We have not heard the collective voice of the Churches and religious groups, political parties and their leaders, the youth and their campus and off-campus organizations.

Our advocacy, as articulated in previous columns, is that we must do something about making available treatment services to as many drug abusers now, especially those coming from indigent families and remote communities who cannot afford  the high costs of such treatment in the cities of Cebu, Manila, Davao, and Tagaytay.

If we do not build our own drug rehabilitation center in Bohol, preferably run by the private sector, but enjoying the combined support of the Government, the Church, civil society, and academic institutions, the social problems created by the increased use of illicit drugs , such as rising crimes, wasted human resources mostly among the affected youth, as well as more unemployment and dependency, will be impossible to address in the coming years.

Since December last year, we have consulted with representatives of various sectors and spent hours over several months studying the operations of a noted drug rehabilitation center in Davao, and have formulated a total of five draft proposals on how we can establish a similar facility in our province, but except for a few comments from friends, these proposals have not merited any kind of serious attention from representatives of key sectors in our province.

In the latest draft proposal which we submitted last week, and published in the social media, we reduced the time frame from three years to one year in building the basic infrastructure for a rehabilitation center; at least one outreach and drop-in center preferably based in a faith-based organization during the initial period; providing for remuneration of the medical and administrative support staff; training the core staff and community facilitators who will run future drop-in centers and conduct as soon as possible an intensive campaign on drug prevention and treatment; and the conduct of a fund campaign to produce a trust fund to support clients from indigent families and remote communities.

The total cost of the project has been reduced from Php 40 million to Php 15 million  In our opinion, the important  thing is to build soonest the drug rehabilitation facility and at least one outreach and drop-in center so that the paid staff and volunteers will gain additional skills and confidence in conducting consultations, assessment and referrals, as well as performing treatment and post-treatment tasks, as soon as possible.  

Despite the vast silence that has greeted our draft proposals up to this time since five months ago, we have remained optimistic that on their own the key sectors are actually working out something to address the problems that we all think will get worst as more people with drug abuse problems go untreated with their brain damaged severely due to addiction.

At some future time, the skewed perspective of drug abuse victims on their increasingly broken relationship with their family, community and ultimately their own selves shall have caused profound damage to society in general.  Perhaps it will be the time that majority of us will have the motivation to act on behalf of our beloved province.

By that time, we are definitely wiser but too senile to be bothered by not being able to succeed in our advocacy early enough. #Boholrehab


NMP/16 Apr 2015/10.05 p.m. 

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