Marijuana plantations raided

La Trinidad, Benguet  , Philippines – Authorities swooped down on marijuana plantations in Benguet and Ilocos Sur netting record highs at the start of the year.

At least P11 million worth of cannabis sativa (marijuana) plants were simultaneously torched in a remote village in Kapangan town in Benguet and at least three large plantations in remote Sugpon town in Ilocos Sur.

The plantations were found by policemen from the Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Task Group and Kapangan town at Sitio Linang and Lud-on in Barangay Gadang and in Sitio Padanga in Barangay Sagubo, both in Kapangan in a three-day operation starting Thursday last week.

Cordillera police’s deputy regional director for administration Chief Superintendent Samuel Diciano said at least 52,500 marijuana plants and 8,800 went up in smoke after the operation.

The marijuana haul was pegged to reach P10.83 million in street value.

At the same time the policemen in Cordillera were torching the marijuana in Kapangan, authorities were also raiding several plantations in highland Sugpon, Ilocos Sur on Saturday.

In what is yet the biggest marijuana eradication operation in Ilocos Sur in recent years, Ilocos Sur police director Senior Superintendent Eduardo Dupale accounted for 1,600 fullly grown marijuana plants in the first plantation including 2,000 seedlings more while authorities torched a second plantation with 1,400 fully grown cannabis. A third plantation also bore some 1,200 plants and 200 more seedlings.

The illegal plants were all burned in the area except some which were taken as evidence, Dupale said as he lamented that no cultivator was collared.

But with the raid, Dupale vowed, a large chunk of a supposed large haul of supply of the illicit trade was denied from the market.

Authorities are gearing to swoop down on various marijuana plantations especially during summer – the supposed harvest season – just around the corner.

Dupale cited the efforts of the operating troops that included the Ilocos Sur Anti-Illegal Drugs Task Group, PDEA-Ilocos, Candon and Alilem police forces who without sleep began to head to the mountainous town on foot to reach the plantations on Saturday midnight and reached the plantations five hours after.