Maguindanao employees undergo mandatory drug tests

MAGUINDANAO - Only 18 out of some 400 employees of the provincial government tested positive to methamphetamine hydrochloride during a mass drug testing led by Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu on Monday, July 19. It's a clear indication that there are few bad eggs among them and that there are more spiritually upright people in the provincial government, Maguindanao's provincial police director, Senior Superintendent Nickson Muksan, said Tuesday.Chemists and physicians tapped to administer the drug tests in Maguindanao’s provincial capital, Buluan town, confirmed on Tuesday that Mangudadatu’s urine sample was totally free from traces of methamphetamine.Methamphetamine, most known as shabu,” is also touted as poor man’s cocaine,” a concoction of different chemicals, among them toxic acids from car batteries.Mangudadatu said he shall have his 18 subordinates, among them a provincial jail guard, who tested positive to drugs rescreened by experts from the police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.Lynette Estandarte, chief provincial budget officer and supervisor of the Maguindanao People’s Medical Team, said about 400 from the more than 800 employees in different divisions and service outfits under the office of Mangudadatu underwent the drug testing last Monday.Mangudadatu was irked with the attempt by the guard in the Maguindanao provincial jail to deliberately contaminate his urine sample with isopropyl alcohol to obscure drug residues.A second testing, initiated on order of a visibly angry Mangudadatu, indicated that the guard’s urine sample indeed contained traces of methamphetamine. All those who tested positive shall be screened again and if proven to have sniffed shabu, shall be dealt with accordingly. We shall consult the Civil Service Commission on how to punish them,” Mangudadatu said.The governor and his siblings, among them Khadafeh, a member of the 24-seat Regional Assembly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, had earlier worked out, along with the Maguindanao provincial police and different units of theArmy’s 6thInfantry Division, the surrender in recent weeks of hundreds of drug traffickers and peddlers in the province.