By Joyce Pangco Pa?ares and Roy Pelovello

PRESIDENT Arroyo yesterday ordered mandatory drug tests in all high schools, vocational schools, colleges and universities in her first act as the country?s interim anti-drug czar.

In the wake of allegations that Justice Department staff had been bribed to dismiss drug charges against three affluent suspects known as the Alabang Boys, she also gave an independent panel investigating the case up to Jan. 27 to submit its report.

?I will temporarily act as the [anti-drug] czar, or overseer of the war against illegal drugs,? the President said at a Cabinet meeting yesterday.

?The case of the so-called Alabang Boys should jolt us into action. A country awash with illegal drugs is a country compromised, its law-and-order institutions tainted and corrupted.?

Administration allies in Congress welcomed the President?s move, while her critics dismissed it as an ill-advised gimmick.

Mrs. Arroyo said her appointment would be temporary, and that she would eventually turn over the job to Dangerous Drugs Board chairman Vicente Sotto III and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency chief Dionisio Santiago.

Education officials are still working out the mechanics for the drug tests in schools.

Sotto told the President that 78 percent of close to 100,000 drug-related cases filed in court since 2003 remained unresolved.

He said the National Security Council cluster meeting yesterday agreed on the need to prepare an integrated manual of operations that anti-drug agents may use against traffickers.

The absence of such a manual could have led to some of the controversy over the arrest of Richard Brodett, Jorge Joseph and Joseph Tecson, the so-called Alabang Boys.

House Speaker Prospero Nograles welcomed the President?s latest action.

?I guess nobody can do it better than her under the circumstances, with vast powers and resources of the Office of the President,? he said.

Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga said the President would now be directly accountable for the success or failure of the government?s program against illegal drugs.

Added Marikina Rep. Teodoro Marcelino: ?The agencies concerned shoud treat this as a wake-up call, to enforce the rule of law by giving drug offenders the harshest punishment to avoid any assertion of a drug junta within the government.?

But Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casi?o said the President was overreacting in ?a classic case of grandstanding.?

?We already have two drug czars?Sotto and Santiago. What the President needs to do is to clean up the [Justice Department] starting with its secretary and to strenghten the PDEA. She should just do her job without resorting to fancy titles and gimmicks,? Casi?o said.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez yesterday said he was having difficulty completing the six-person investigating panel, after a former Supreme Court Justice and a bishop declined to serve on the body.

Gonzalez said San Beda Graduate School of Law Dean Ranhilio Aquino, National Youth Commission vice-chairman Priscilla Abante, Assistant Solicitor General Karl Miranda, and La Union provincial prosecutor Danilo Bumacod had already agreed to join the panel.

A Palace source said La Union Bishop Artemio Rillera and former Supreme Court Associate Justice Josue Bellosillo had declined. Youth commission chairman Richard Nalupta also declined because he is related to a prosecutor, and recommended Abante instead.

During the Cabinet meeting, Mrs. Arroyo also moved to end the word war between PDEA agents and Justice prosecutors over allegations of bribery.

?You should all start working together and look for victories, build up cases together and stop this menace together,? the President said.

On Sunday, the President ordered the temporary relief of Justice Undersecretary Ricardo Blancaflor, chief state prosecutor Jovencito Zu?o, and prosecutors John Resado, Philip Kimpo and Misael Ladaga.

But she did not act on Gonzalez?s recommendation to have PDEA Special Enforcement Services head Maj. Ferdinand Marcelino go on leave as well, after he admitted during a congressional inquiry last week that he met with a former classmate in the military who offered him a bribe on behalf of the Tecsons.

Other measures being considered to strengthen the anti-drug campaign:

? The detailing of lawyers from the Office of the Solicitor General to the PDEA to help build up cases, review and monitor pending drug cases and review decided cases

? Activation of 24-hour anti-narcotics teams nationwide

? Construction of at least six more rehabilitation facilities in at least four provinces.

Sotto, author of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, said the Education Department and the Commission on Higher Education would fund the drug testing in all schools across the country.

?We have a Supreme Court ruling that says it is only unconstitutional to do random drug testing among political candidates. I don?t think parents will be opposed to this,? he said.