SOME P156,400 worth of shabu and P1 million worth of marijuana were confiscated in separate drug busts by authorities in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) as part of the intensified campaign on illegal drugs.
Operatives from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Cordillera (PDEA–CAR) arrested on October 28 Rickson Cruz Villena, 26, a resident of Barangka Itaas, Mandaluyong City in a buy-bust operation on Jacinto Street, Malcolm Square in Baguio City.
Confiscated from him was 23 grams of shabu worth P156,000, drug paraphernalia and cash.
The operation was conducted with the help of Baguio City Police Office Stations 7 and 3 and PDEA-Mimaropa Marinduque Provincial Office.
Two marijuana plantation sites in Benguet and Kalinga were destroyed by anti–narcotics agents. Plants worth P1.05 million were uprooted.
In two days of massive marijuana eradication efforts in Benguet on October 21-22, 2019, a total of 4,394 seedlings and 375 fully grown marijuana plants worth P250,760 were uprooted in Tacadang, Kibungan Benguet by operatives from the Kibungan Municipal Police Station (MPS), Provincial Drug Enforcement Unit, Provincial Intelligence Branch, Benguet Provincial Police Office and PDEA-CAR discovered the illegal plants cultivated in a 804 square meters land area.
In Kalinga, a total of 4,000 fully grown marijuana plants worth P800,000 were also uprooted in Barangay Butbut Proper, Tinglayan on October 26, 2019. The combined operatives of Tinglayan MPS, Kalinga Provincial Mobile Force Company, Kalinga PPO and PDEA Kalinga discovered the marijuana plants in a 500-square-meter land.
No marijuana cultivators were arrested during the operation while all illegal hemps were burned onsite. (SunStar Baguio)