August 13, 2024 | 10:25am
MANILA, Philippines — Rep. Paolo Duterte (Davao City, 1st District) on Monday filed a bill that will require all elected and appointed officials, including the president, to undergo “mandatory random” drug testing.
House Bill 10744 amends Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 to specify that all screening tests will be done through hair follicle testing, while confirmatory tests will involve urine drug tests.
The Davao City lawmaker’s bill covers all elected and appointed officials in public offices, “including the President of the Republic of the Philippines,” according to a news release.
Former president Rodrigo Duterte, the lawmaker’s father, challenged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. last month to undergo hair follicle testing to disprove allegations that he uses illegal substances.
This came after the pro-Duterte Hakbang ng Maisug group released a now-debunked video showing the president allegedly sniffing white substances.
Duterte wrote in the bill’s explanatory note that “exemptions or favors in the mandatory nature of random drug testing” should not be based on “class privilege, such as the elected and appointed officials, since it becomes imperative upon their own mandate that they shall lead the life of modesty and integrity.”
Government officials who test positive may be suspended or terminated from office, according to the bill.
The bill also states that electoral candidates “are not precluded from undergoing voluntary hair follicle drug test” within 90 days before election day.
Relations between the president and the Duterte family became strained in the fourth quarter of 2023 after Congress, which is dominated by the president’s allies, decided to strip Vice President Sara Duterte of her request for confidential and intelligence funds.
The former president accused Marcos in January of being a “drug addict” — words that he had similarly deployed against critics and human rights advocates during his six-year term.
Duterte’s public remarks against the president were seen as the battle lines officially being drawn between both families that were former allies in the 2022 elections. The vice president is widely seen as a strong contender in the 2028 presidential elections.
In 2018, Paolo filed libel cases against former Sen. Antonio Trillanes after the staunch Duterte critic publicly accused him and his father of having ties to the illegal drug trade in the country.
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