13 arrested, P4 million worth of shabu seized in 2 BARMM stings

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Combined agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and policemen arrested 13 traffickers, seized P4 million worth of shabu and closed down a drug den in separate operations within just 24 hours in two provinces in the Bangsamoro  Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Local executives confirmed to reporters on Sunday that agents of the PDEA-BARMM and operatives from different units of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region had arrested the shabu peddlers Jalil Adil Sultan and Tricky Hadjinur Pacalna in an entrapment operation on Saturday in Barangay Poblacion in Saguiaran, Lanao del Sur.

George Paul Alcovindas, director of PDEA-BARMM, said the duo yielded voluntarily when they learned that they had sold shabu to plainclothes anti-narcotics agents during a tradeoff in Barangay Poblacion in Saguiaran, planned with the help of officials of PRO-BAR’s Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office and local executives, among them Gov. Mamintal Adiong, Jr.

PDEA-BARMM agents had seized from Sultan and Pacalna 587 grams of shabu, worth P3.9 million, to be used as evidence in prosecuting them for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Their arrest of Sultan and Pacalna on Saturday was preceded by the entrapment of 11 shabu and marijuana traffickers, known for their links with a few remnants of two now defunct Southern Mindanao terror groups, in a joint operation by PDEA-BARMM and PRO-BAR on Friday in Barangay Tumbao in Mangudadatu, Maguindanao del Sur.

All 11 of them, Bati Salendab, Samrod Timpolok, Kevin Timpolok, Bryan Daud Uyag, Tundatu Betol, Rudy Anta, Bando Silongan, Mark Cadel, Jimmy Uyag, Datu Puti Amino and Boren Mangandog, are now in the custody of PDEA-BARMM.

Alcovindas said PDEA-BARMM agents and personnel of different PRO-BAR units in Maguindanao del Sur province immediately detained the 11 male suspects after selling to them more than a dozen plastic sachets filled with shabu, costing P81,600, right in their drug den in a secluded area in Barangay Tumbao in Mangudadatu.

Local executives and ethnic Maguindanaon datus who helped facilitate the entrapment operation said the 11 now detained suspects collaborated in facilitating pot sessions in their drug den in Barangay Tumbao for buyers of the illegal merchandise from villages around.

They also confirmed that all of the 11 suspects also occasionally circulated marijuana in Mangudadatu and nearby towns in Maguindanao del Sur supplied to them by a few remaining members of the now inactive Dawlah Islamiya and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, propagated in far-flung areas in the province.