Home News Cagayan Valley Cagayan CSU won’t accept enrollees using illegal drugs

CSU won’t accept enrollees using illegal drugs

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Philippines- Cagayan State University (CSU) will deny the admission of enrollees who will test positive in drug tests.

In a statement on Facebook, Father Ranhilio Aquino, the university vice president for finance and administration, said they are requiring students to undergo drug test as part of the government’s anti-illegal drugs war.

Despite oppositions, he said the university administration is insistent of the new policy because “the threat of students of CSU using, dependent on or habituated to drugs is real…it is part of the government’s campaign against illegal drugs and the university is an instrumentality of national government.”

The new policy, according to Aquino, will “screen out drug users, dependents and abusers” from enrolling in the university.

Aquino said students may undergo drug testing in any of the following: a. Municipal health office, Crime Laboratory of the Philippine National Police (PNP), Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), any government physician employed in a government health facility, government hospitals or health facility and in any private physician provided under oath.

If tested positive, the university will endorse for confirmatory test.

“If the confirmatory test still yields positive results, the student will be denied enrollment and referred to the PNP or to the PDEA for the necessay legal action,” Aquino said.

‘Established jurisprudence’

Aquino said that the legality of requiring drug testing of all students in schools had been upheld by the Supreme Court in 2008, or even before the intensified anti-drug campaign of President Rodrigo Duterte.

He said the implementation of the policy was based on an “established jurisprudence,” citing a decision of the High Court on the case of the Social Justice Society v. Dangerous Drugs Board, G.R. 157870 (November 3, 2008).

The court said the provisions of R.A. 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act requiring mandatory, random and suspicionless drug testing of students are “constitutional.”

“Indeed, it is within the prerogative of educational institutions to require, as a condition for admission, compliance with reasonable school rules and regulations and policies. To be sure, the right to enroll is not absolute; it is subject to fair, reasonable, and equitable requirements,” the decision said.

Earlier, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) mulled its plan to consider drug testing as a requirement for admission in colleges and universities.

They, however, have yet to formally craft and passed an order for the said policy. Northernforum.net

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2 Comments

  1. […] CSU won’t accept enrollees using illegal drugs […]

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