Duterte names mayor tagged in ‘shabu ambulance delivery’

DAVAO CITY — Mayor Rodrigo Duterte yesterday named Parang, Maguindanao Mayor Talib Abu as allegedly responsible for the transport of about 3.5 kilos of shabu to Davao City last month using an ambulance.

In his testimony at the regular session of the Davao City Council, Duterte also said Abu was the head of a drug syndicate operating in Central and Southern Mindanao.

"It is a vast network that includes his wife, Bai Abu," he said.

Ironically, it was Abu himself who challenged Duterte to name the Maguindanao mayor he alluded to in his earlier statement on the "shabu ambulance delivery."

Abu claimed it was unfair for the other mayors of the province of Maguindanao if their names would be dragged into the issue.

Duterte stressed that he withheld the information on Abu at first because he did not want to compromise the investigation on the illegal activities of the mayor.

Duterte said the information on Abu was also revealed by a certain Luis Francisco, who was killed last Oct. 4 here in Davao City.

Bai Abu, on the other hand, was the alleged distributor of shabu in Digos City and in Kidapawan City.

Fransisco also reportedly named other members of the drug syndicate operating in Southern and Central Mindanao, including a certain ‘Ada’, Dong Sinsuat, Haji Kagilaw, Cas Hudasan, Manuel Siongco, a certain ‘Idris’, Napsia Daris, Diana Coronan, Leo Luna, Eduard Dumon, Ronnie Guilles, a certain Alex Lim, Michael Bacarias.

Duterte said some of those in the list were either already dead, or arrested though some are still under surveillance.

Sinsuat, a resident of Kabacan, North Cotabato, was reportedly himself a leader of a separate drug syndicate operating side by side with the Abu group.

Meanwhile, PDEA Region XI chief Wilkins Villanueva also provided the members of the Davao City Council with a matrix of the drug distribution in Mindanao.

Villanueva identified the port cities of Marawi, Iligan, Cagayan de Oro, Ozamis and Cotabato as the main sources of shabu in the island.

The cities of General Santos and Davao were identified as areas where shabu could also be obtained but not in the same volume as that of the five cities at any given time.

Duterte, however, cautioned that the matrix could easily change.