In a bid to promote holistic social reintegration program for Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDLs) in the community, the Davao City Justice Zone, in partnership with the City Government of Davao, Dangerous Drugs Board and Commission on Higher Education (CHEd), conducted the first Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) summit on March 19–20.
In March 2019, the Davao City Justice Zone began its efforts on coordinated justice sector actions to enable access to justice. The Justice Zone is led by the Executive Judges, and composed of national agencies based in the city, offices of the City Government of Davao, academic institutions providing legal aid, and civil society organizations.
This summit aims to encourage, challenge, and assist HEIs in developing plans for holistic social reintegration programs for PDLs that will contribute to the reduction of drug demand and reduced recidivism.
Discussed during the summit were the Philippine Development Plan, role of HEIs in the Philippine Anti-Drug Strategy (PADS), and the Davao City Justice Zone initiatives.
Best practices in social reintegration were also shared.
Atty. Jonah Margarette Presto, Assistant Chief of Staff of the Davao City Mayor, said in an interview that the city has programs for prevention and reintegration.
She said that through the City Anti-Drug Abuse Council (CADAC), the city provides trainings to capacitate barangays for community-based rehabilitation and prevention as well as reintegration.
“We partner with Justice Zone to complement those programs because we believe, as local government, we cannot do it alone. We have to have a collaboration with all other stakeholders both private and government in order to have a bigger impact especially for our goals: prevention, rehabilitation, and reintegration,” Presto added.
CHEd Regional Director Maricar Casquejo also shared that the commission continuously monitors the effectiveness of the dangerous drug abuse prevention program in HEIs with the help of the city government and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
For five years now, drug education campaigns of HEIs have been successfully carried out through collaborative efforts with various government agencies.
During the second day of the summit, a focus group discussion on developing HEI-specific social reintegration plans was conducted.
Challenges and opportunities were presented during the discussion.
The City Government of Davao, along with the Davao City Justice Zone, urged the HEIs in the city to collaborate with the city government and other agencies to create programs that will support holistic reintegration of PDLs in the community and reduce the cases of reoffenses. CIO
