Police operatives destroy marijuana plants being cultivated in different provinces in the Cordillera region.
Some P23.4 million worth of illegal drugs from different police operations were confiscated while 40 persons were arrested for either selling and possessing illegal drugs in the Cordilleras.
The Police Regional Office in Cordillera (PROCOR) through its information officer, Maj. Carolina Lacuata, bared that a total of 44 police operations brought about the arrest of 40 drug suspects, two of whom were collared in two buy-bust operations.
The operations yielded a total value of P23.42 million of confiscated illegal drugs which was composed of: 68 sachets of suspected shabu; 2 sachets of marijuana; 30ml of marijuana oil; 3 marijuana tubes; 6 marijuana bricks; 68,924 marijuana plants; 2,100 seedlings; 9,500 marijuana stalks, and 46.51 kilograms of marijuana leaves.
The suspects arrested in two buy-bust operations were identified as Ian Terry Ladyong Olat of Tabuk City and Philip Louie Peralta of Bangued, Abra.
Confiscated from them were P1,000 buy-bust money, one cellular phone, four sachets containing suspected shabu, P2,000 boodle money, P5,520 cash money, a swiss knife and a motorcycle and a motorcycle key.
Lacuata said police authorities destroyed some P21 million and P2.1 million worth of marijuana in Benguet and the Mountain Province, respectively.
Four marijuana cultivators were charged for violation of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
Brig. Gen. R’Win Pagkalinawan, PROCOR director stressed, “We will continue to perform our mandate with equal fervor and intensity to keep our communities safe from the wicked clutches of dangerous drugs and we believe that the continuing war on drugs is winnable when people in the community are sincerely committed to helping us.” (Jojo Mangahis)