ILOILO CITY?The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) and Department of Health (DOH) have started conducting random tests on students in Western Visayas to check for drug use.

Dr. Rex Casiple, officer-in-charge of the CHEd regional office, said the random tests were being conducted among students in Aklan and Antique provinces since Monday. The tests would be done on students for a week.

Next week, teams conducting the tests would be in Negros Occidental, Iloilo, Capiz and Guimaras.

Casiple said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that the testing could not cover all of the 149 private and government higher education institutions in the region because of the limited time and number of testing teams.

He said health and education officials would conduct the testing in 64 schools in the region?30 on Panay Island and 34 in Negros Occidental.

The testing complies with President Macapagal-Arroyo?s directive issued early this year to heighten the government?s campaign to ensure that all public and private high schools and colleges are drug-free.

Casiple said the three-member teams, composed of representatives of the CHEd and DOH, have been deployed to the region to conduct the testing.

The teams pick out randomly 10 students from each school from the list of students prepared by school officials. Those tagged for the tests were required to get their parents? written permission.

Casiple said all results of the testing would be kept confidential and the results would be forwarded to the CHEd?s national office.

Last week, the CHEd-DOH teams conducted tests in five universities in Iloilo City, the regional education center of Western Visayas.

Casiple said in the random tests conducted in the region in 2007, 4 of 450 students turned out positive and were subjected to counseling in the presence of their parents.

Aside from acting as a deterrent to drug abuse, Casiple said the testing was aimed at determining the prevalence of drug use among students and finding ways to put a stop to it.