P680K worth of shabu seized on 1st day of BARMM gun ban

COTABATO CITY— Policemen in Cotabato City seized not a firearm but P680,000 of shabu on their first day of enforcing the Commission on Elections' ban on carrying of firearms in the Bangsamoro region to ensure peaceful parliamentary polls in its territory on September 14.  

The now-detained 22-year-old tricycle driver Albanie Daud Kamid was supposed to deliver his illegal merchandise on Thursday, July 16, to a contact in Malabang town, Lanao del Sur, when he was intercepted by policemen at a Comelec gun ban checkpoint in Jose Lim Sr. Street in Barangay Poblacion 5, Cotabato City.

The Comelec, the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and military units under the Western Mindanao Command started implementing the total ban on carryin firearms together on Thursday in all five provinces and three cities in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Col. Jibin Bongcayao, director of the Cotabato City Police Office, told reporters on Friday, July 17, that policemen from the Cotabato City Police Station 1, led by Capt. Anuar Mambatao, subjected the suspect to a routine inspection only to determine if he was carrying a gun. They found that his sling bag contained 100 grams of shabu worth P680,000.

Barangay officials and traditional community leaders assisting policemen in the checkpoint told reporters that Kamid yielded peacefully when they discovered he was in possession of shabu.

Kamid, a resident of Barangay Gadungan in Talitay, Maguindanao del Norte, readily confessed to barangay officials and police investigators, in the presence of reporters, that he was transporting the shabu confiscated from him to a buyer in Malabang, a seaside town in Lanao del Sur, one of the five provinces in BARMM.

Bongcayao said they are to prosecute the suspect for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, using the shabu seized from him as evidence.

Police Capt Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of PRO-BAR, said local executives and peace-advocacy organizations are helping policemen and personnel of different military units in enforcing Comelec's election-related gun ban in BARMM’s five provinces, Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi, and its three cities, Lamitan, Marawi and Cotabato.