MANILA -- As part of Quezon City’s drive against illegal drugs, Quezon City Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte on Thursday said a total of 27,438 drug surrenderers have been profiled in the city’s surrenderer database in an effort to enhance the responsiveness and effectiveness of the city’s anti-drug campaign.
“When we started the campaign against drugs, we had no idea how many were positive. We did not have data, and we only know which areas were highly-affected,” said Belmonte, who chairs the Quezon City Anti-Drug Abuse Advisory Council (QCADAAC), in an interview.
“At least now, with our database, we can more or less see the trend of how many are surrendering per month and we can extrapolate how many we have to rehabilitate,” she added.
Launched in July 2016 and the first of its kind in the Philippines, the Integrated Drug Abuse Profiling System (IDAPS) aims to boost the city’s drug rehabilitation program by providing a comprehensive database to monitor persons who have surrendered to the police under the “Oplan Tokhang” campaign.
Through the IDAPS, the surrenderers are profiled for their personal and family information, drug use background and existing warrants or pending cases.
The surrenderers are then given a drug-dependency evaluation and assessed for treatment and rehabilitation services.
The database is being managed by the QCADAAC in partnership with barangay representatives and the Quezon City Police District.
As of November 2018, a total of 27,438 surrenderers have been profiled in the system.
“With this information, we can plan better and monitor better our responsiveness. After all, we should first know who these drug dependents are before we address their needs,” Belmonte said.
The vice mayor said the database will also assist in preventing relapse among drug surrenderers.
“Ngayon pa lang, nagbubuo tayo ng grupo para i-monitor lahat ng nagtatapos sa ating programa para malaman natin kung talagang nagiging matagumpay tayo and saan tayo nagkakaroon ng lapses (Just now, we are creating a group to monitor all those who graduated from our program so that we will know that we are indeed being successful and where we are having lapses),” Belmonte said.
“We have to be data-oriented in everything that we do, so that we can measure how effective we are in governance,” she added.
Out of the profiled surrenderers, 5,728 have been referred for the community-based rehabilitation program while 3,502 others have already graduated from treatment and rehabilitation. (PNA)
