Bacolod City – Regular employees of the Negros Occidental provincial government that tested positive for the use of illegal drugs may also face dismissal from government service, Provincial Legal Officer Atty. Alberto Nellas Jr. disclosed recently.
Twenty-seven provincial government employees have tested positive for drug use, majority of whom are job order, casual and contract of service workers, as confirmed earlier by Gov. Eugenio Jose Lacson.
As provided by the Provincial Drug Free workplace ordinance, Nellas said there should be confirmatory testing for regular employees that test positive for drug use.
But once found positive again, he said they will undergo administrative proceedings for grave misconduct, which if merited, warrants the penalty of dismissal from service.
Nellas, however, assured them of due process, as they can challenge the drug testing results, at their own expense.
The job contracts of casual, JO, and COS workers that tested positive for the use of illegal drugs were not renewed by the provincial government.
“We can’t have employees, being paid by taxpayer’s money, who are drug users,” Nellas stressed.
The provincial government of Negros Occidental is currently hiring for the positions vacated by Capitol employees whose job contracts were not renewed starting this year, due to either poor performance or being hooked on illegal drugs.
Of the 212 dismissed from their respective jobs, 97 are Job Order workers, 92 Contract of Service employees, and 23 are plantilla casual employees, according to data obtained from the Provincial Administrator’s Office. (Gilbert Bayoran via The Visayan Daily Star (TVDS), photo courtesy of TVDS)
