TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines —The regional office of the Department of Education in Eastern Visayas will start this month its drug testing among public and private high school students in the region.

DepEd assistant regional director Alberto Escobarte said a team would conduct the drug testing through a random sampling of 10 students in each school who would be asked to submit their urine specimen.

However, Escobarte declined to identify the schools that would be visited by a DepEd team although he said the unannounced testing would be conducted first in schools in Leyte and Tacloban, Escobarte said.

Tacloban City has 11 public high schools with 16,476 students while Leyte division has 129 public high schools with 91,799 students.

Escobarte said they would also conduct drug testing in private secondary schools. Tacloban City has 16 private schools, which have 3,094 students while Leyte province has 80 private schools and unknown number of students.