Cotabato City cop taunts drug syndicates

COTABATO CITY — He’s marked for liquidation by illegal drugs syndicates, but he’s intent on just doing his job.

"Trabaho lang, walang personalan (It’s just a job, no personal motives)," says Inspector Samson Obatay, commander of Precinct 4, which has jurisdiction over three known "hot spots" in this city, regarded as Central Mindanao’s transshipment point for illegal drugs.

Obatay and his family now receive death threats everyday for his unit’s unrelenting, but seemingly "solitary campaign" against local narcotics syndicates.

Highly placed intelligence sources from the Army and police have confirmed that four notorious drug lords, two of them based in Marawi City, have raised a P700,000 "reward" for anyone who can liquidate Obatay.

Since his assumption as Precinct 4 commander last October, Obatay, along with his men, has arrested 14 elusive drug traffickers in successive raids never before seen in the history of law enforcement in this 40-year-old city.

Obatay, who first enlisted as a lowly constable in the defunct Philippine Constabulary on Aug. 20, 1974, said he and members of his family have received death threats almost daily since the 14 drug dealers, three of them women, were arrested.

Apart from their feats in the anti-narcotics campaign, Obatay and his men had also seized 10 assorted firearms from different people, including a son of an influential Maguindanao mayor, as part of their station’s firearms reduction program.

Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, who chairs the city’s peace and order council, has been campaigning against the carrying of guns in his bid to transform the city’s 37 barangays, where an estimated 3,000 loose firearms exist, into "gunless communities."

The day-to-day accomplishments of Precinct 4 are now featured in a daily segment of the public affairs programs of Catholic radio station dxMS, this city’s leading broadcast entity owned by the Oblate congregation, and a local TV outfit of ABS-CBN.

For as long as he is Precinct 4 commander, Obatay said he and his men would continue to go after drug syndicates operating within their jurisdiction.

And he’s bent on doing this despite their meager resources and lack of manpower.

In several occasions, the police personnel of Precinct 4 even had to pool portions of their own salaries to raise money for covert drug buy-busts.

The precinct only has one patrol vehicle - a surplus mini-cab, which has a very small engine that cannot be relied on in chasing the fast cars of drug traffickers.

Barangay officials have confirmed that illegal drugs worth about P200 million circulate in the city every month.