Eleven personnel employed by the Naga City government returned positive results after being subjected to a random, unannounced drug test, Mayor Leni Robredo has confirmed.
Robredo, who took over as the city’s chief executive in 2025 after serving as vice president, made clear she was troubled by the outcome, expressing disappointment over the number of workers flagged during the screening.
The testing forms part of a broader effort Robredo has pushed since assuming office to hold the local bureaucracy to stricter standards. In November 2025, she told local media that an internal review of the city’s anti-drug work had left her unsatisfied, saying she felt the administration was not doing enough on the issue. That candid assessment was later twisted online into a fabricated quote suggesting the drug trade had infiltrated City Hall itself — a claim VERA Files debunked, noting that Facebook pages had stripped away words from what she actually said during a November 17 interview on Radyo Pilipinas Naga.
Robredo has long argued that drug testing carries weight only when it catches people off guard. As a presidential contender in 2021, she said scheduled screenings amounted to little more than a self-serving exercise, insisting that genuine results come from tests that are random and unannounced, whether administered by a public or private facility, so long as the public trusts its credibility.
Her concern over Naga’s exposure to illegal drugs predates her mayoralty. Back in 2019, as newly appointed anti-drug czar, she acknowledged that the Bicol region was contending with a sizable drug problem and described her hometown, alongside Legazpi, as a transshipment corridor for the trade — even as she maintained that Naga’s villages had largely kept the problem at bay.
The random screening also fits within the governance framework Robredo installed on her first day in City Hall. Her inaugural executive order established a zero-tolerance stance against corruption, tasking the city’s Internal Audit Service with periodic reviews, performance checks, and spot inspections meant to keep every government employee in line.
