Relatives turn in three shabu dealers to law enforcers

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Local officials on Saturday, March 15, separately commended the relatives of three large-scale shabu dealers for their role in the suspects' entrapment during separate anti-narcotics operations this week.

Radio reports on Saturday morning, March, 15, in Cotabato City and in nearby provinces stated that the entrapment of Montasser Amat in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte on Thursday, March 13, by policemen led by Lt. Col. Esmael Madin was done with the help of his relatives, who had also promised to help identify his accomplices in his shabu peddling activities.

Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, had told reporters that Amat was immediately arrested after selling 150 grams of shabu, costing P1 million, to personnel of the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station in Barangay Makir in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte.

"It was his relatives who informed the personnel of the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station about his drug peddling activities, enabling us to plan out the entrapment operation with their help. The operation was successful," Macapaz said. 

Amat yielded peacefully when he sensed that he had sold P1 million worth of shabu to a team of non-uniformed policemen led by Madin, who is Sultan Kudarat's municipal police chief, and plainclothes agents of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station.

Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-9 had also separately entrapped two shabu dealers last Tuesday, March 11, via operations based on tips from their close relatives, according to radio reports early Saturday.

Maharani Gadaoni-Tosoc, director of PDEA-9, said their agents had seized P340,000 worth of shabu from Louie Jay Ugsimar during an entrapment operation in Barangay Galas in Dipolog City, also planned with the help of his friends and relatives.

Two of the informants who confirmed to PDEA-9 Ugsimar's trafficking of shabu in Dipolog were his uncles, according to radio reports.

Agents of PDEA-9 and policemen had also arrested last Tuesday Ronald Doble in an entrapment operation along Villalobos Street in Barangay Zone IV in Zamboanga City that led to the confiscation from him of P1.3 million worth of shabu.

Gadaoni-Tosoc said the entrapment operation that resulted in Doble's detention and confiscation from him of 200 grams of shabu was planned with the help of confidential informants, among them his relatives, who knew his drug peddling activities in Zamboanga City and nearby towns.

"To the tipsters who provided very valuable information about the illegal activities of these two now detained individuals, we are thankful," Gadaoni-Tosoc said.