AUTHORITIES UPROOTED on Thursday more than 10,000 hills of marijuana plants worth around PHP400,000 in a raid on an upland plantation at the boundary of South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces.
Lt. Col. Celestino Daniel Jr., chief of the South Cotabato police’s mobile force company (SCPMFC), said Friday the plantation was found amid a stretch of farms covering parts of Sitio Alyong, Barangay Danlag in Tampakan, South Cotabato and Sitio Lamalis, Barangay Datal Blao, Columbio, Sultan Kudarat.
He said they launched the operation early Thursday based on information from village officials and concerned residents.
The operating team was composed of personnel from the SCPMFC, provincial drug enforcement unit, Tampakan police station, Sultan Kudarat police’s drug enforcement unit, 1205th Regional Mobile Force Battalion-12, Regional Intelligence Division-12, and the Army’s 27th Infantry Battalion.
Villanueva said they were able to locate the plantation around 7 a.m. with the help of Barangay Danlag officials.
“The cultivators were no longer around when we reached the area,” he said in a report.
He said they immediately uprooted all marijuana plants found at the site and burned destroyed some of them.
He said they took samples as evidence and proper examination by the South Cotabato police crime laboratory office.
Capt. Joseph Villanueva, chief of the Tampakan municipal police station, said they already have some leads regarding the identities of the cultivators or owners of the plantation.
He said the investigation and follow-up operations were ongoing against the suspects, who were believed based in the area.
In October last year, authorities recovered around 38,500 hills of marijuana plants worth PHP7.7 million from a plantation straddling the border of Tampakan, Columbio and Kiblawan town in Davao del Sur.
Authorities said the marijuana plantations in the area were reportedly protected by local units of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. (By Roel Osano)
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