BONTOC — Combined Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and Philippine National Police operatives in the Cordillera destroyed four marijuana plantations in the boundary of Saclit, Sadanga, Mountain Province and Buscalan, Tinglayan, Kalinga on August 6, 2020.
The operation resulted to the destruction of fully grown Marijuana plants and seedlings with estimated value of 2.55 million pesos.
Earlier this year, concerned residents and officials of barangay Saclit, Sadanga approached the Sadanga Municipal Police Station (MPS) and reported the presence of Marijuana plantations in their territorial jurisdiction. The Sadanga MPS in turn referred the information to the PDEA- Mountain Province Provincial Office and together they conducted a casing and surveillance operation in June to validate the said information which proved to be accurate.
Residents of barangay Saclit claim that Marijuana planters who come from the neighboring village of Buscalan have been encroaching and planting Marijuana on their land. “We do not want our barangay to be infected with Marijuana,” a Saclit resident said.
Sadanga Mayor Gabino Ganggangan thanked the operatives and urged PDEA not to stop its efforts to maintain the drug-cleared status of Mountain Province. The mayor earlier issued Executive Order No. 18 s. 2020 which bans tourists bound to Buscalan, Loccong, Bugnay and other barangays of the Butbut tribe from using the road section within the area of responsibility (AOR) of Sadanga as a measure to help stop/curb the Marijuana business or its transshipment. “We should cooperate and heed the call of our president to fight this kind of business in any effective measures we can,” Ganggangan said in a statement.
Few days ago, law enforcement units destroyed worth Php3,200,000.00 of fully grown marijuana plants discovered in three plantation sites at Brgy. Loccong, Tinglayan, Kalinga.
The successful eradication operations was conducted under PDEA’s OPLAN “Pakhu” and PNP’s OPLAN “Grasshopper” by elements of PDEA- Mountain Province; PDEA Region 4-B; Mountain Province Police Provincial Office (PIB, DEU); PNP-DEG SOU1; CIDG; RIU; RID; MPPMFC; PDEA-Kalinga, PDEA-R02, Tinglayan MPS, PIB/DEU KPPO, 1st and 2nd KPMFC, 1503rd RMFB 15, Lubuagan MPS and Tanudan MPS and Sadanga Municipal Police Station.
(Credits to PDEA MPPO)