Marijuana plants uprooted in Compostela Valley

COTABATO CITY — Lawmen uprooted thousands of full grown marijuana plants in Central Mindanao yesterday, the second haul in four days.

South Cotabato’s provincial police discovered the marijuana farm in Barangay Katol, a hinterland town in Tiboli, South Cotabato, with the help of local officials and religious leaders.

The alleged owner of the prohibited plants, a certain Sinulim Gawad, eluded arrest after sensing that policemen, backed by civilian volunteers, have started surrounding his farm.

The uprooting of marijuana plants in Tiboli came less than a week after operatives of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police burned some P20 million worth of marijuana in a three-hectare farm in Matanog, Maguindanao.

Chief Superintendent Acmad Omar, director of the ARMM police, said the marijuana plants were neatly planted in between rows of other crops in a secluded village in Matanog, not far from a hostile stretch of the Secretary Narciso Ramos Highway.

According to Omar, the propagator of the marijuana plants, whom barangay officials identified as Taha Gabuk, managed to escape just as members of the ARMM police were approaching the farm.

"The information that a marijuana farm exists in that barangay was first relayed to our intelligence units by religious leaders there. The raid was immediately carried out after a week-long surveillance and verification," Omar said.

The uprooted marijuana plants, the biggest haul by the ARMM police this year, were burned in the town proper of Matanog in the presence of local officials.