COTABATO CITY — Non-uniformed policemen clamped down four drug peddlers, reportedly linked to the two now weakened local terror groups, in separate police operations in this city.
Ranking officials of intelligence units under the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PRO-BAR) confirmed on Thursday, that all four suspects are in their list of shabu and marijuana traffickers sharing fractions of earnings to certain leaders of the outlawed Dawlah Islamiya and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in central Mindanao.
Brig. Gen. Jaysen C. De Guzman, director of PRO-BAR, told reporters on Thursday that the four suspects, who fell in three operations supervised by Col. Jibin M. Bongcayao, director of the Cotabato City Police Office, are now all detained, awaiting prosecution.
Local government officials said a 27-year-old resident of Barangay Awang in Datu Odin Sinsuat was arrested by operatives of the Cotabato City Police Precinct 2 after he sold a heat-sealed sachet containing shabu along Gonzalo Javier Street in Barangay Rosary Heights 7 on Tuesday.
Another shabu peddler was clamped down on the same day after combined agents of the Cotabato City Police Drug Enforcement Unit and the Cotabato City Police Precinct 1 procured from him two sachets of shabu during a tradeoff along Almonte Street in Barangay Poblacion 5.
Senior members of the multi-sector Cotabato City Peace and Order Council, led by Mayor Bruce C. Matabalao, said two more shabu dealers fell in an anti-narcotics sting on Wednesday in Purok Pagkakaisa in Barangay Poblacion 2, enforced by personnel of the Cotabato City Police Precinct 3 and other PRO-BAR units.
Mr. Bongcayao and Mr. De Guzman separately told reporters that policemen seized three sachets of shabu from the duo in the entrapment operation assisted by barangay officials.
“These are street level narcotics traffickers but what is good about these three entrapment operations is that these were all carried out with the direct support of city officials and barangay leaders,” Mr. De Guzman said.
Local executives and Moro datus in towns in the Bangsamoro region’s adjoining Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces told reporters that remaining leaders of the now virtually defunct Dawlah Islamiya and BIFF had allowed the four peddlers to sell shabu in their far-flung enclaves in exchange for money. — John Felix M. Unson
