CAMP DANGWA, La Trinidad, Benguet – More than P4.3 million worth of marijuana were successfully destroyed by combined police operatives and anti-narcotics agents during a series of marijuana eradication operations in two remote villages in Bakun and one far flung sitio in Kibbungan recently.
The operatives toughly trooped in Sitios Lubban and Sitio Kimayad, Barangay Kayapa, Bakun, Benguet and in Sitio Lanipew, Tacadang, Kibungan, Benguet to wipe out marijuana plantations in the 2-say operations held last December 1 and 2.
The team uprooted and destroyed total of 15,600 fully grown marijuana plants, 3,000 marijuana seedlings, 9 kilos dried marijuana stalks found and planted in 15 marijuana plantation sites with a total land area of 4,522 square meters and that the uprooted illegal hemp have a total have a total Dangerous Drug Board value of P4,375,000.00.
Despite having difficulty of detecting marijuana plantation sites due to the mountainous and rugged terrains leading to the area, the operatives still managed to wipe out marijuana plantation sites and the proliferation of other forms of illegal drugs regionwide.
The operating troops were composed of elements from the Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Group, the Kibungan and Bakun Municipal Police Stations, the Regional and Provincial Public Safety Companies and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).
Chief Superintendent Ulysses G. Abellera, regional director of the Police Regional Office (PRO) in the Cordillera, assured more aggressive marijuana eradication operations will be conducted in identified marijuana plantation sites in the different parts of the region in order to reduce the supply of the illegal hemp being circulated and spare the youth from the serious negative effects of using illegal drugs.
By Dexter A. See
