[420 Girl]

MANILA, Philippines—It’s all systems go for the random drug testing of students in February.

Education and health officials have chosen the first 15 schools in Metro Manila for the random drug testing (RDT) of secondary students on February 2, Education Assistant Secretary Thelma Santos said on Tuesday.

Santos said the Department of Education would field 20 teams across the country so that the target of 85,000 students tested for drugs could be met by November.

“We just had our meeting with DOH (the Department of Health) and it’s a go on February 2,” Santos said.

“Our first question was can we do it on February 2 and the answer was ‘Yes, we can.’ We’re very excited because we thought at first ‘Oh boy, how can we ever reach 85,000’, but when we looked at the figures again, we realized that we could do it,” she added.

Santos said that the 15 chosen schools in the National Capital Region would be the first institutions to have drug tests this year. Around 8,500 schools will participate in the tests with 10 students per school being tested.

“In the second week, some teams will be going to Cebu, and Baguio, and Davao. We are now coming up with teams so that we can reach out to the 85,000 students who will be chosen to take the tests,” Santos said.

Each team is composed of a medical analyst, two monitors (who will accompany the student in the toilet for the submission of urine samples), and an encoder or administrative assistant. There will also be one official from the central office, the DepEd regional coordinator, and a medical officer from the division level.

“With 20 teams, we need 142 days to finish the tests for 85,000 students. So if we have 20 teams, this would be up to November,” Santos said.

“DOH is ready with the 85,000 forms. Just imagine. They were fast. They also have testing kits available up to March. They are now in the process of procuring more test kits,” she added.

The actual testing would be done by the DOH while DepEd is coordinating with DOH officials to train DepEd medical officers to help in the testing.

“The actual testing is done by DOH. If our medical officers were trained, that would take us a shorter time to finish all the 85,000,” Santos said.

He said the 85,000 would undergo “screening tests,” whose results could be ready in a day or two. If a student tested positive, he or she would then have to undergo a “confirmatory test.”

“The confirmatory tests take longer. During our last exams in 2005, we had to bring the specimen to Manila because they use very sophisticated equipment for the test,” Santos said.

“There’s one in Cebu and Davao and that’s the reason we are going there first so that we can have the confirmatory tests,” she added.

Quoting the DOH, Santos said the testing of 85,000 randomly chosen students would cost around P25 million to P30 million.

“The last time, it was a little more than P4 million and we got that from PCSO (Philippine charity Sweepstakes Office). The test kits and testing per se is P100 per student. The kits for the for marijuana and shabu tests is P25,” Santos said.

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