P50-M marijuana plants, seedlings destroyed in Ilocos Sur

CAMP DIEGO SILANG, La Union, Philippines – Authorities seized and destroyed some P50 million worth of marijuana at two plantation sites in the mountainous barangay of Banga, Sugpon, Ilocos Sur on Thursday. 

Police and agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency raided a 9,000-square-meter plantation on Mt. Saleng and on Mt. Kinbetngaw with a combined area of 18,000 square meters, Senior Superintendent Francisco Esguerra, regional chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, said.

 Esguerra said 253,000 fully grown marijuana plants worth P47 million were uprooted and destroyed while 10 kilos of marijuana seedlings with an estimated value of P250,000 and 100 kilos of marijuana fruiting tops worth P2.5 million  were burned. 

“Samples of the uprooted marijuana plants were brought to the Ilocos Sur police office for ceremonial burning while the rest was burned at the site,” he said.

The marijuana grower eluded arrest. – Jun Elias, Raymund Catindig