5 drug dealers nabbed in Mindanao

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - Lawmen on Friday nabbed in separate dragnets five drug traffickers engaged in large-scale peddling of shabu in the neighboring North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces.

Felimon Ruiz, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said PDEA agents caught relatives Abdulsalam Pakan and Wahida Pakan in the act of selling Shabu to poseur-buyers disguised as drug dependents during a buy bust operation in Talayan, Maguindanao.

Ruiz said neighbors and barangay officials helped them plot the operation which led to the arrest of the Pakans, both ethnic Maguindanaons.

Agents recovered from their possession some P90,000 worth of shabu and drug sniffing paraphernalia.

The arrest of the Pakans came barely two hours after agents of PDEA in Region 12 bagged, in one operation after another also on Friday, three notorious drug traffickers in Kidapawan City.

Omar Maruhom, Muslima Sarip and Rohannie Salik are now under PDEA’s custody, to be turned over to North Cotabato’s provincial jail after the filing of corresponding cases against them next week.

Agents have collected more than P100,000 worth of shabu from the suspects.