The Pasig City local government welcomed officials of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Wednesday, Oct. 12, as they inspected the city’s Community-Based Drug Rehabilitation (CBDR) projects, reaffirming their partnership in the fight against illegal drug use.
Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto and Vice Mayor Robert “Dodot” Jaworski Jr. met with United States Foreign Assistance Deputy Director Dr. Tracy Carson and USAID Deputy Mission Director Rebekah Eubanks.
Sotto and Jaworski showed their appreciation for USAID's support for the city's drug rehabilitation programs and other initiatives for persons who use drugs (PWUDs).
“The Pasig City LGU and the city council are committed to fostering humane drug rehabilitation programs in our city. We will remain relentless in fighting illegal drugs while safeguarding basic human rights and dignity,” said Jaworski.
The local government gave the USAID officials a “walkthrough of the city’s implementation of the CBDR,” focusing on providing “quality and client-centered care for people who use drugs (PWUDs) and their families without stigma, fear, and prejudice.”
Dr. Carson and Eubanks joined the CBDR event in Barangay Palatiw where members of the Pasig health department provided health services to PWUDs and their families via the mobile drug testing clinic.
They saw the components and protocols of the mobile clinic which offers not only drug testing but also HIV screening and vaccination for various illnesses.
They also visited Pasig’s urban garden project, a local government project that aims to provide livelihood opportunities for recovering PWUDs who have finished their treatment programs.
Dr. Carson and Eubanks were able to talk with some of the recovering PWUDs at the site.
The local government’s anti-illegal drug use projects, led by the Anti-Drug Abuse Office, are assisted by USAID’s Renew Health program – Expanding Access to Community-based Drug Rehabilitation (CBDR) in the Philippines.
The five-year program, which runs from May 2019 until May 2024, aims to “help PWUDs, people in recovery, and their families obtain access to informal care, self-help or community-based rehabilitation and recovery support to reduce or prevent drug dependence.”
Aside from helping raise awareness on drug recovery, USAID partners with local governments in the country to provide training and capacity building of CBDR service providers. They also offer support in policy making and the “institutionalization of the CBDR.”
Sotto had previously said the CBDR is “very important in our fight against drugs.”
“We can’t just fight the supply side, but we need to fight the demand side. And the goal of CBDR is to have an intervention, to reduce the demand for illegal drugs, and to help the lives of these individual people so that they can recover from drug addiction or drug abuse,” Sotto said.