COTABATO CITY — Policemen and soldiers in Kidapawan City on Tuesday night foiled an attempt to smuggle P437,000 worth of imported cigarettes from Zamboanga del Sur to to Digos City.
The coastal towns in Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga del Norte and remote seaside barangays in Zamboanga City are known transshipment points for cigarettes from Indonesia, brought in by seafarers from Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, both in the Bangsamoro region.
Col. Dominador Liscano Palgan, Kidapawan City police chief, told reporters on Wednesday that the contraband would be delivered to Digos City by truck driver Anthony Villamor Torreon and his aide, Ibrahim Macasipot Saliling. These were intercepted at a roadside checkpoint of the anti-terror Task Force Gensan manned by personnel of the Army’s 39th Infantry Battalion and policemen.
Soldiers at the checkpoint along a stretch of the Kidapawan-Digos Highway in Barangay Paco were only able to check the duo for firearms, in line with a ban by the Commission on Election as part of security measures for the October 30 barangay polls. However, they found imported cigarettes inside their van-type light truck instead.
Personnel of the Kidapawan City Police Station and members of the 39th IB discovered that there were 1,259 reams of Port and Greenhill brand cigarettes in large boxes piled inside the truck, covered with old, used vehicle tires.
Torreon and Saliling had separately told police investigators that they were merely hired to transport the imported cigarettes from Zamboanga del Sur to a buyer in Digos City, the capital of Davao del Sur province.
Palgan said they will turn over the confiscated cigarettes to the Bureau of Customs for its disposition.