Professors to take drug tests

You're kidding, right?

MANILA, Philippines—College and university faculty members will undergo random drug testing starting February to help eradicate the problem of illegal drugs in schools, according to Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) chair Emmanuel Angeles.

Angeles said on Monday that faculty members failing the random drug testing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ordered earlier this month would not be allowed to teach unless they undergo a drug rehabilitation program.

“We are going to include not only students but also members of the faculty in the random drug testing which we hope to implement starting next month,” Angeles said at a press conference in the CHEd main office in Diliman, Quezon City.

Arroyo, who took recently over the position of the anti-drug czar, ordered the random drug testing for students order following the controversy over the arrest of the Alabang Boys, scions of rich families accused of drug peddling.

Last week, Vicente Sotto III, chair of the Dangerous Drugs Board, said that students of some 8,500 public and private high schools, colleges, universities and vocational schools would be ordered to undergo the drug tests.

He said the program was an expansion of the DDB’s existing drug testing program, which has been implemented in the last two years at randomly selected schools nationwide.

Angeles said faculty members found using the prohibited substance would have to undergo rehabilitation or they might be dismissed from their posts.

“Faculty members found positive for substance abuse will not be allowed to teach. They will be made to undergo rehabilitation,” Angeles said.

Read All [By Philip Tubeza]