Fighting drug abuse | Bandera

Fighting drug abuse

Lito Cinco |November 22,2018
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Fighting drug abuse

Lito Cinco - November 22, 2018 - 08:18 PM

SPORTS is a natural antidote against illegal drugs abuse.

This I believe because sports will teach people, particularly young people, the discipline needed in order to stay and succeed in sports. Values of sportsmanship, determination, patience, hard work, punctuality, respect and focus are just some of the things that an athlete can learn from engaging in sports, plus maintaining a drug-free body specially for those wishing to go into competitive sports.

It is unfortunate though that there have been cases of athletes who have reached their peak like some ex-PBA players who succumbed to the temptation of illegal drugs that resulted in their being dropped by their team. I will not mention names anymore or who these cagers are but it is a real pity that they allowed this to happen to themselves.

And so even now, I still look back to the 16 years or so that I was running the Young Journalists Association of Mandaluyong or Y-JAM for then Mayor Benhur Abalos.This was a pet project of Abalos that I expanded into a more complete program that included values formation and leadership building aside from publishing an anti-drug abuse community newspaper with campus journalists as writers.

I felt that if these young people will learn the proper values in life on their own they will not to go into drugs. I used to bring students to Mt. Banahaw for our leadership and values building workshop and I still regret that the program had to stop after 17 years because of reasons beyond my control.

Now why am I reminiscing on this?

You see from being indirectly involved in Mandaluyong City’s campaign against drug abuse, I am now active in the Mandaluyong Anti-Drug Abuse Council or MADAC, serving as a senior mentor of sorts to the newly reorganized office now headed by former barangay captain Tracy Domingo together with Kent Faminial and Nanding Satorre.

Fact is we just finished our plans and programs planning for 2019 and conducted an overnight teambuilding session for the MADAC staff at the Hacienda Darasa Resort in Tanauan, Batangas.

The plans and programs were presented to the staff for them to see the direction being set by the new management team of MADAC assigned by Mayor Menchie Abalos.

It was heartwarming for me to see how the staff responded during the session and committing themselves to supporting Tracy and his new team and on their own promising to mend their own ways to make way for a new and better MADAC.

It always gives me a sense of fulfillment when I do this kind of sessions and see the participants responding well.

I also informed Tracy that a friend of mine Mandaluyong businessman-sportsman Alex Wang, who used to be a national team manager for the women’s basketball team when my friend Fritz Gaston was the coach, offered to help us in our campaign.

It turned out Alex used to be a member of MADAC a long time ago and when he learned of my involvement with MADAC he expressed interest in getting involved and helping out by using sports.

We have not sat down to talk but just the intention of helping is a good indication as he is from the private sector.

And the fight against illegal drugs need to be a collective effort from both the government and private sector.

Another friend of mine, Nandy Charvet, who used to organize a regular fun run in Mandaluyong where we met a long time ago, has also proposed a home-based preventive education program for MADAC involving parents who will be harnessed in an integrated educational campaign. This will be known as Pangkat Tahanan Laban sa Droga which the city of Mandaluyong will formally launch.

I will be involved in this program for sure and help in working out the action plans.

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So you see, even at my age, I still do something worthwhile and I take pride in my involvement with the city of Mandaluyong.

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