LUCBAN, Quezon Aug. 14 – Around 44 drug surrenderers are this year’s first batch of “graduates” of the first ever “Pagbabago at Pagasa Reflection Camp” (PPRC) under the auspices of the Yakap Bayan Program in Barangay Palola here.
In an interview with PNA here on Monday, Police Chief Inspector Alejandro D. Onquit, Lucan chief of police said the graduates completed their skills training and disaster preparedness capacity building sessions for the first month during their six-month “campers” rehab sessions.
Onquit said the graduation ceremony is only the first part of training among the PPRC Campers during the “camping” experience under the rehabilitation program which began July 10 this year.
He said the next drug surrenderers’ training and hands-on exposure is when they leave the PRRC Camp and engage in their respective communities for the barangay immersion so they could be re-oriented and feel life anew and return to the society as renewed persons.
After the first batch of “surrenderers turned graduates”, the camp will now usher in the 2nd batch of surrenderers for the similar skills training and capacity building seminar in Lucban’s unique “campsite”.
This town’s drug rehabilitation camp known as “Pagbabago at Pag-asa Reflection Camp” (PPRC) in Palola Village opened last July and is accepting drug surrenderers by batches who will undergo the six-month rehabilitation program.
Preparatory and orientation sessions, skills training and seminars are featured during a month’s duration for the surrenderers-campers in the one-hectare lot and refurbished building turned into a campsite.
Lucban Mayor Celso Olivier Dator initiated project with the local government in cooperation with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Yakap Bayan program to cater to some 543 drug surrenderers in this town.
Dator said the camp volunteers and PPRC leaders help the surrenderers shed off their old image as “cancer of the society” into productive citizens.
He said the local government finance the rehabilitation cost with the assistance of the Department of Health (DoH) and the Bureau of Parole and Probation based in Quezon province.
The six-month rehabilitation program includes physical conditioning, training on fire fighting and rescue, spiritual enlightenment seminar and community immersion.