20 Negros Occidental employees test positive for drugs

BACOLOD CITY—At least 20 employees of the Negros Occidental provincial government are facing investigation after they tested positive for alleged use of prohibited drugs.

Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson said the concerned regular government employees would have to go through administrative hearings.

The provincial government did not say how many of those who tested positive for illegal drug use were regular employees. But those hired as contractual and casual service workers or on a job order basis would no longer have their contracts renewed, the governor said.

Suffer consequences

“They will suffer the consequences. That was their choice,” Lacson said in a recent interview.

He said those who tested positive for drug use would still undergo confirmatory tests this month.Nineteen of the 20 employees who took the drug test came back positive of methamphetamine hydrochloride (“shabu”) use, said Provincial Administrator Rayfrando Diaz. One employee tested positive for marijuana, he added.

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There were 16 others whose test results had faint traces of shabu use who will also be subjected to confirmatory drug tests, Diaz said.

The 36 were among 2,300 of the about 4,000 Negros Occidental provincial government officials and employees who underwent drug tests on Dec. 11 and Dec. 12. —CARLA P. GOMEZ INQ