ANOTHER P11 million worth of marijuana plants were eradicated in a two-day operation in Tinglayan, Kalinga.
Anti-narcotics agent from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Cordillera, Kalinga police, and the Philippine Army torched some P11,600,000 worth of marijuana plants discovered in eight plantation sites measuring 4,250 square meters in Barangay Buscalan, Tinglayan on August 28 and 29.
Last August 28, Some 33,700 pieces of fully-grown marijuana plants worth P6,740,000 were burned in the area under PDEA's “Oplan Linis Barangay IV” and Tinglayan Municipal Police Station's “Oplan NON-Buds.”
The following day, operatives destroyed three marijuana cultivation areas measuring 2,900 square meters with P4,860,000 worth of illegal hemp in Barangay Butbut Proper, Tinglayan and were able to uproot 11,800 pieces of fully-grown marijuana plants and torch 20,000 grams of marijuana stalks on the site.
Authorities, however, failed to arrest the cultivator during the operations but continuous monitoring of the areas where the prohibited plants are being sourced by drug personalities.
PDEA–Cordillera has already confiscated P40.1 million of illegal hemp for the past three months in Kalinga province alone.
In February, PDEA-Cordillera agents intercepted two motorcycles that led to the discovery of marijuana stalks worth P812,500 in a routine checkpoint in Kalinga.
On July 19, anti-narcotics agents destroyed marijuana plants estimated to be worth P27.779 million in the villages of Loccong and Butbut, also in Tinglayan town.
PDEA and other law enforcement groups raided 10 plantation sites in Loccong and seven in Butbut, but was unable to arrest any marijuana planter during the multi-agency clean-up operations of drug-affected areas.