Sotto urges senators to take drug use tests
Senate Minority Leader Vicente Sotto III on Sunday urged his colleagues in the upper chamber to submit themselves and their respective staff to drug use tests after actress Nadia Montenegro, an aide of Sen. Robinhood Padilla, was accused of smoking marijuana in the Senate.
In a letter to Senate President Francis Escudero, Sotto said this would maintain a drug-free workplace, and “ensure that the morale, efficiency, integrity, responsiveness, progressiveness and courtesy shall be observed in the civil service.”
Sotto noted that when he was Senate President in 2018, more than 300 officials and employees of the Senate were subjected to drug use tests.
The senator, a former chair of the policymaking Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB), said random drug tests used to be done annually at the Senate in compliance with Civil Service Commission Memorandum Circular No. 13, s. 2017, which requires all government agencies and offices, including constitutional bodies such as the Senate, to submit a regular report to the DDB on the drug tests and the number of personnel who tested positive, if any.
The senator said he was only requesting the drug testing because of news articles “regarding an alleged use of marijuana within the Senate premises,” but did not specifically name Montenegro.
Inciting incident
Padilla has since asked Montenegro, who denied the allegation, to take a leave of absence and explain within five days, or until Aug. 18, her supposed involvement in the incident, according to Padilla’s chief of staff, Rudolf Philip Jurado.
Jurado said that even before the investigation conducted by the Senate sergeant at arms, retired police Maj. Gen. Mao Aplasca, Padilla’s office, already started an internal probe into the incident.
Two other senators have expressed outrage at the use of marijuana in the Senate.
Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri said he would require his entire team, including himself, to undergo a drug test to help “anchor the chamber’s standards on conduct that fits its role as a lawmaking body.”
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, who said the incident was embarrassing for the upper chamber, also proposed that the Senate fire any employee who is proven to have used illegal drugs inside its building.
