Exit door awaits men-in-uniform on drugs
ROXAS CITY – Dismissal from the service awaits uniformed personnel who will be found to be using illegal drugs.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno stressed that uniformed personnel of the Philippine National Police (PNP, including those in the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), will be summarily dismissed from government service if found to be using illegal drugs.
Puno, in their department's online news, said that although it is a harsh policy but this is also a means to ensure that the government is serious in curbing the problem of illegal drugs in the country.
He said that the government through the National Police Commission will be conducting a nationwide random drug tests on uniformed men as part of the sustained efforts of the Arroyo administration to win the war against illegal drugs.
Puno stressed that the refusal to undergo drug tests will be construed as insubordination on the part of any member of the PNP.
During the PNP's 18th anniversary, Puno said that the national police should be at the forefront of the government's mission to eradicate the scourge of illegal drugs.
He said that "before we can teach others to be drug free, we must ourselves first be drug free."
Puno has called on the officers and men of the PNP to be examples in the crusade against illegal drugs by starting it from within themselves. (PIA/Jemin B. Guillermo)