AN ESTIMATED P10 million worth of marijuana plants were uprooted and burned by operatives of the Benguet Provincial Police Office and allied units at Sitio Palina, Barangay Tacadang in Kibungan town.
Police Brigadier General R’win Pagkalinawan, Police Regional Office–Cordillera (PRO-COR) director, personally led the uprooting and burning of the seized marijuana plants.
Pagkalinawan said continuous operation of PRO–COR aims to make sure that no more marijuana plantation sites will present in the province of Benguet.
“We are not waiting for these marijuana plants to grow before we do the uprooting. We are shooting two birds with one stone because aside from the uprooting and burning of marijuana plants, our troops are given the opportunity to exercise which is needed in the police organization’s policy of the body mass index or BMI,” Pagkalinawan said.
Since the assumption of Pagkalinawan, at least P40 million of marijuana were already uprooted in the different parts of the Cordillera.
Pagkalinawan said consistency in the implementation of marijuana eradication campaign is the key to rid the provinces and region of marijuana.
“We want to make sure that as long as the law dictates that marijuana is prohibited, the police organization is here to conduct marijuana eradication campaign so that we can stop the issue that Cordillera is the marijuana capital in the country,” Pagakalinawan added.
Police conducted operations in seven sites and discovering three other areas with small plantations of marijuana which were also subsequently uprooted and burned on site.
“We will not stop and this is what we will constituents to do even if we may not catch the cultivators but I want the people to be aware that this is what the people are doing because we now have many arrests in the checkpoints that we have established but we need to stop it from the source so that this will not have the opportunity to go down to the buyers,” Pagkalinawan added.
Kibungan Mayor Cesar Molitas welcomed the marijuana eradication operation by PRO-COR and assured his support for future operations to be conducted by the police.