Drug tests for lawmakers? Why not, says Alvarez

Incoming House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez during the Meet the Inquirer Multimedia interview at the Philippine Daily Inquirer office in Makati City.INQUIRER PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES

WHEN the 17th Congress convenes in July, lawmakers may have to line up for something else other than a handshake with the new Speaker of the House of Representatives: a drug test.

Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez, the incoming Speaker of the House “supermajority” led by the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), is “seriously” considering requiring his colleagues to take a drug test.

“Why not? I will take that suggestion seriously,” Alvarez said in response to a question during the Meet Inquirer Multimedia forum on Tuesday.

And what to do when members test positive?

“There’s rehabilitation,” he said in jest.

President-elect Rodrigo Duterte, Alvarez’s longtime friend, is known for his fierce stand against drug pushers and drug lords, even setting multimillion-peso bounties to eliminate them. Tarra Quismundo