Teacher arrested in Maguindanao shabu entrapment operation

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A school teacher fell in a drug entrapment operation the other day, barely a week after anti-narcotics agents killed another in a sting in Midsayap, North Cotabato that turned haywire.

Roy Martin Ledesma was arrested after selling shabu to non-uniformed police agents in a clandestine tradeoff in Barangay Broce in nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao.

The operation that resulted in the arrest of Ledesma, a teacher in the Broce Elementary School, was jointly planned by officials in the Datu Odin Sinsuat municipal police and the Maguindanao Police Drug Enforcement Unit.

Police Col. Erwin Tabora, chief of the Maguindanao PDEU, said Friday informants confirmed prior that Ledesma, 44, had even used his house in Barangay Broce as an occasional shabu den for selected friends.

The joint Maguindanao PDEU and Datu Odin police team that entrapped Ledesma seized from him P5,000 worth of shabu, an employment identification card and marked paper bills agents paid for his illegal merchandise.

Ledesma is now detained, to be prosecuted for violation of Republic Act 9165, or the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, using the shabu confiscated from as evidence.

He was arrested just a week after anti-narcotics agents killed the 23-year-old school teacher Jake Placibe for resisting arrest during a shabu entrapment operation in Midsayap town in North Cotabato.

Lt. Col. John Calinga, chief of the Midsayap municipal police, said plainclothes agents were to arrest Placibe peacefully but neutralized him instead when he pulled out a gun when he felt he had sold shabu to policemen.

He said Placibe was a police high-value target for his large-scale distribution of shabu in Midsayap and nearby towns in North Cotabato province.