The Philippine government has asked the United States for more technical assistance in its anti-drug fight, a local newspaper report Tuesday.  

Philippine Daily Inquirer said that Jose Calida, justice undersecretary and executive director of the Dangerous Drug Board (DDB), made the appeal to the US Drug Enforcement Administration in a recent seminar on Clandestine Laboratory Site Safety in MetroManila.

Calida said that the US technical support could help a lot in accurate drug identification, technically advanced investigation of drug cases and the use of technical knowledge on illegal drug matters.

The support should also include employable anti-drug strategies and tactics against drug lords and traffickers, he added.

Meanwhile, Calida noted the peculiarity in the country's experience on illegal drugs. "It is this peculiarity of the Philippine experience that makes some of our drugs cases unique and the responses to peculiar incidents demands local knowledge."

Currently, the DDB is joining the Department of Education and Philippine e-Learning Society in working to come up with a localized version of an online anti-drug abuse campaign game called David's Diary, the newspaper said.

According to the DDB, David's Diary, which was developed and originally used by the Singapore government, follows the story about a man who is named David and becomes a drug addict.

The two government agencies and non-governmental organizations are aiding dozens of teachers, parents, and students to come up with local content similar to David's Diary and ready to translate it into Filipino, burned it onto CDs, and then distribute the game to secondary and college schools nationwide for free, said the report.

According to the DDB's statistics, there are approximately 1.8 million hard drug abusers and another 1.6 million casual drug users in the Philippines and a growing number of high school and college students start using drugs due to peer pressure and family problems.

(Xinhua News Agency July 6, 2004)