THE Police Regional Office Cordillera (Procor) continues to strengthen its relentless campaign against illegal drugs despite yielding no arrests for marijuana cultivators.
“Our campaign to eradicate marijuana is part of Procor’s supply reduction effort. We need to be more aggressive in totally getting rid of marijuana cultivation, especially in some barangays in Kalinga and Benguet. This is aside from the earlier pronouncement of President Duterte that until he is still the president, marijuana is still illegal," Procor Director Police Brigadier General R’win Pagkalinawan said.
Intelligence operations are steered to arrest marijuana growers, however, no cultivator has yet been arrested even with the continuous arrest of persons in possession of marijuana in Buscalan, Kalinga. Pagkainawan attributed this to a “tradition,” however, assured measures are continuously being done regarding the practice.
“There is a certain tradition there where tourists going there are sold with marijuana allegedly for personal use, which is why I do not need to order the presence of policemen up there and, instead, will just have to wait for them to go down because the agreement there is if you buy more than you can use, you are now a drug pusher and you will be selling these. That is why we will just arrest them when they go down,” the police regional director explained.
Pagkalinawan stressed the campaign against illegal drugs is geared towards preventing the crime of planting and selling of marijuana to prevent it from reaching the drug market.
“The crime is present since marijuana produce have been planted. So why should the police not go there and destroy it? Until the presence of marijuana seedlings is there, the action of the police is not to wait for these marijuana seeds to grow before destroying it and until I do not receive information that the price of marijuana has gone up in the lowlands, that is the only time that I would see that our eradication campaign is effective,” Pagkalinawan said.
On July 4, marijuana plants in a 7,900-square-meter land area in Loccong, Tunglayan, Kalinga were discovered and uprooted by authorities.
On July 5 in Awa, Ahin, Tinoc, Ifugao, 20 fully grown marijuana plants in a 50-square-meter land area valued at P4,000 were discovered and uprooted. A concerned citizen reported its presence to Tinoc authorities.
On July 6, around 63,200 fully grown marijuana plants with a total DDB value of P12.6 million were destroyed in Kalinga and Ifugao Province.