Marijuana courier dies in General Santos road accident

COTABATO CITY— A motorcycle-riding courier out to deliver some P20,000 worth of his illegal merchandise died in a road accident in Barangay Calumpang in General Santos City before dawn Friday.

Witnesses had told investigators from the General Santos City Police Office that the 26-year-old Niño Francis Arellano Vitor was riding his motorcycle when he collided head-on with another motorist, a minor, in a stretch of the Fil-Am Highway in Purok Fernandez in Barangay Calumpang.

Vitor was targeted for entrapment, supposedly on Sunday, according to personnel of different intelligence units under the Police Regional Office-12.

An emergency team from the General Santos City local government unit that responded to the accident found four packs of dried marijuana leave, sealed in plastic containers from Vitor's bag. These were discovered while they were about to put him on a spine board for loading into an ambulance.

The emergency responders immediately turned over the marijuana leaves to policemen sifting through the scene of the accident that also injured a male motorist, whose name was withheld for his being underage.

Vitor was declared dead on arrival in a hospital where he was brought by policemen and employees of the General Santos City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office.

Brig. Gen. Augustus Placer, director of the Police Regional Office-12, on Friday ordered the General Santos CPO and the provincial police offices in Sarangani and South Cotabato to cooperate in identifying the accomplices of Vitor in his marijuana peddling activities.