TINGLAYAN, Kalinga June 25 – More than P59 million worth of fully grown marijuana plants were successfully uprooted and destroyed by combined police operative and anti-narcotics agents during the conduct of two-day aggressive marijuana eradication operation in nine plantation sites at Barangays Buscalan and Loccong, here, recently.
Last June 23, 2020, the government operating troops discovered and destroyed more or less 68,650 fully grown marijuana plants worth P13.7 million that were planted in six different plantation sites having a land area of approximately 5,550 square meters at Barangay Buscalan here.
The operating troops discovered and destroyed more or less 226,500 fully grown marijuana plants worth over P45.3 million that were planted in three plantation sites having a land area of approximately 15,300 square meters at Barangay Loccong on June 24, 2020.
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However, Gil Castro, regional director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA-CAR), claimed that no drug cultivator was arrested by the operating troops during the marijuana eradication operations as they were reportedly able to monitor the arrival of the government forces in the plantation sites and that they were able to scamper for safety way ahead of their arrival in the said areas.
He added that most of the uprooted marijuana plants were destroyed on site while a portion of the same were taken by the combined police and anti-narcotics agents for evidentiary purposes.
Castro claimed that the discovery of the marijuana plantations sites is a product of enhanced intelligence gathering that have led to successful marijuana eradication operations and prevented a huge volume of the illegal hemp from being brought into the mainstream communities by unscrupulous illegal drug dealers.
By Dexter A. See
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