By Lilian Mellejor/PNA
DAVAO CITY — Most drug rehabilitation centers in the country want a temporary halt to “plea bargaining deals” that have allowed jailed drug users to be released early in exchange for seeking treatment.
Dr. Ivanhoe Escartin, program manager of the Dangerous Drugs Abuse Prevention and Treatment Program of the Department of Health (DOH), said the legal arrangement has led to a deluge of patients, which threatens to overwhelm the country’s reformatory facilities.
He issued the statement during the second day of the National Anti-Drugs Summit at the Marco Polo Hotel here Monday, where he noted that the country’s rehab centers only have a combined capacity of 10,000 beds.
Escartin and other medical practitioners who spoke during the summit acknowledged that the country’s rehab centers are unable to cope with the flood of new patients from prisons.
Currently, the DOH official said some 60 percent of the admissions at the treatment centers consist of “plea bargain” patients, while 40 percent come from regular or voluntary patients.
Escartin said at least 140,000 more drug users are waiting for the results of their “plea bargain” applications.
“So hindi talaga pwede sa residential facilities (So all cannot be accommodated in residential facilities),” he added.
In his talk during the summit Monday, Health Secretary Francisco Duque said the country’s drug treatment and rehab facilities have already catered to 10,118 patients in the past two years, with 6,996 receiving aftercare services. Of the total number of patients, he said, at least 10,696 have already graduated.
DOH record shows that there are 16 government-run treatment and rehab centers with a total bed capacity of 6,150. At least eight facilities remain under construction, with a total bed capacity of 1,250.
The Supreme Court has recently allowed drug offenders to avail of plea bargaining for cases involving the possession of small quantities of shabu, marijuana, and other illegal drugs.
Defendants may opt for plea bargain “to a lesser offense or to only one or some of the counts of a multi-count indictment in return for a lighter sentence than that of the graver charge.”
