79 drug users leave Bulacan's 'Bahay Pagbabago' with new skills

Seventy-nine drug dependents have graduated from the Bulacan province's drug reformation program.

The drug dependents spent 30 days at a Bahay Pagbabago drug reformation center in Santa Maria town learning how to make chili paste, chili powder, chili bagoong and chili-laced "dynamite" leche flan.

A report on Unang Balita said families of the drug dependents who have passed the reformation program expressed their gratitude for giving their loved ones to start a new life.

At least 25 drug reformation centers spread out in three cities and 21 municipalities, with at least 2,000 patients, under the Bahay Pagbabago program have been established in Bulacan.

The reform centers were put up amid the blood drug of the government.

More than a million drug dependents have surrendered under the Philippine National Police's Oplan Tokhang, a part of the anti-drug drive where suspected users and dealers are visited by policemen and barangay officials at their homes and convince them to surrender.

Upon assumption of his new post as head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, retired police official Aaron Aquino said he wanted to focus more on reform programs and less on anti-drug operations.

Aquino had explained that reformation programs are shorter in duration than rehabilitation programs.

"Ang pagkakaiba lang ng reformation sa rehabilitation is that pareho lang din naman, but 'yung reformation is just a short program, just about two to three months, while rehabilitation would entail six months minimum up to one year," he had said. —Nicole-Anne C. Lagrimas/ALG, GMA News