DAVAO City Rep. Paolo Duterte has filed a bill that will require all elected and appointed officials, including the president, to undergo "mandatory random" drug testing every six months. Under the bill, officials who test positive may be suspended or terminated from office.

Aside from encountering constitutional obstacles to his bill, the eldest child of former president Rodrigo Duterte is also likely to be questioned about his motives for proposing it, coming as it does after his father's very public accusation that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is a drug addict, and after a pro-Duterte group released a now-debunked video purportedly showing the Chief Executive sniffing white substances.

It also comes after a drug smuggling complaint was filed against the lawmaker — who has denied the charge — over a shipment of methamphetamine that slipped through the Bureau of Customs in 2017, when the elder Duterte was still in office, waging his war on drugs that killed thousands of suspects without the benefit of a trial.

Paolo Duterte's colleagues in the House of Representatives have called on him to defend the bill in person to respond to accusations that his proposal is aimed solely at embarrassing the President as the rift between the two political families widens.

Pwersa ng Bayaning Atleta Rep. Margarita Ignacia Nograles pointed out that a Supreme Court decision has already made mandatory drug testing unconstitutional if it is included as one of the qualifications for a candidate, as the Constitution itself determines those qualifications.

She also said that while the younger Duterte had the right to file his bill, he should defend it at the committee level and in plenary sessions.

"If you are the author of a bill, you really have to show up, defend it and explain why you want it to pass — first to the committee members and then in plenary for the majority of the House members to support it," Nograles said, in reference to Representative Duterte's spotty attendance record. "He needs to come to work and defend the bill in the best way he can."

Nograles also said that if random drug testing for elected officials were implemented, it should be applied uniformly across all levels of government, including local government units, especially with recent reports that 37 officials of the Public Safety and Security Office of Davao City had tested positive for illegal drug use.

Davao Oriental Rep. Cheeno Almario, on the other hand, said the inclusion of the position of the president implied that Paolo Duterte could have a personal agenda behind the bill, as allies of both father and son have insinuated that President Marcos has been using illegal drugs.

Critics also asked that if Representative Duterte feels so strongly about random drug tests for elected officials, why did he not pursue the bill when his father was still in office and commanded a majority in the House.

Of course, this isn't the first time the Davao City lawmaker has been accused of pursuing personal motives through legislative action. In May, amid a congressional inquiry into extrajudicial killings and human rights abuses during his father's bloody war on drugs, Paolo Duterte urged the House to broaden its inquiry "for a period of at least 25 years up to the present."

Extrajudicial killings in the Philippines remain a "serious problem," and "many of the drug-related ones peaked in 2023 or already at the time of President Marcos," he said.

The move to broaden the inquiry was widely seen as a rather transparent attempt to divert attention from the bloody war on drugs from 2016 to 2022, for which former president Duterte and his staunch ally in the Senate, Sen. Ronald de la Rosa, are now being investigated by the International Criminal Court over allegations of crimes against humanity during that period.

The irony of Paolo Duterte's resolution was not lost on Gabriela Rep. Arlene Brosas, who reiterated calls to hold the former president accountable for his bloody drug war, including other officials such as de la Rosa, who was chief of the Philippine National Police at the time.

Some lawmakers need to be reminded that public office is a public trust and that legislation should be aimed at achieving the common good rather than advancing the lawmaker's own political agenda. The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, in fact, states that public officials and employees shall always uphold the public interest over and above personal interest. Public officials and employees must also perform and discharge their duties with the highest degree of excellence, professionalism, intelligence and skill. For Representative Duterte, it seems, that's strike two.