COTABATO CITY (October 16, 2025, Thursday) —- Non-uniformed policemen clamped down four drug peddlers, reportedly linked to the two now weakened local terror groups, in separate police operations in this city in two days.
Ranking officials of intelligence units under the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region confirmed on Thursday, October 16, that all four suspects are in their list of shabu and marijuana traffickers sharing fractions of earnings to certain leaders of the outlawed Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in Central Mindanao.
Brig. Gen. Jaysen C. De Guzman, director of PRO-BAR, told reporters on Thursday that the four suspects, who fell in three operations supervised by Col. Jibin M. Bongcayao, director of the Cotabato City Police Office, are now all detained, awaiting prosecution.
Local government officials said a 27-year-old resident of Barangay Awang in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, Abdulrasheed Ismael Ali, was arrested by operatives of the Cotabato City Police Precinct 2 after selling to them a heat-sealed sachet containing shabu along Gonzalo Javier Street in Barangay Rosary Heights 7 on Tuesday, October 14.
Another shabu peddler, the 30-year-old Tawis Banto Antong, was clamped down on the same day after combined agents of the Cotabato City Police Drug Enforcement Unit and the Cotabato City Police Precinct 1 had procured from him two sachets of shabu during a tradeoff along Almonte Street in Barangay Poblacion 5.
Senior members of the multi-sector Cotabato City Peace and Order Council, led by Mayor Bruce C. Matabalao, said two more shabu dealers, Moksim Dikay Madag, 45, and his 42-year-old accomplice, Maurillo Bulabon Villacarlos, Jr., fell in an anti-narcotics sting on Wednesday, October 15, in Purok Pagkakaisa in Barangay Poblacion 2, enforced by personnel of the Cotabato City Police Precinct 3 and other PRO-BAR units.
Mr. Bongcayao and Mr. De Guzman separately told reporters that policemen had seized from the duo three sachets of shabu in the entrapment operation assisted by barangay officials.
“These are street level narcotics traffickers but what is good about these three entrapment operations is that these were all carried out with the direct support of city officials and barangay leaders,” Mr. De Guzman said.
Mr. De Guzman said the administration of Cotabato City’s now second termer mayor, Mr. Matabalao, was instrumental in the entrapment by PRO-BAR units of some 20 drug peddlers operating in different barangays under his jurisdiction since he was first elected to office in 2022.
Local executives and Moro datus in towns in the Bangsamoro region’s adjoining Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces told reporters that remaining leaders of the now virtually defunct Dawlah Islamiya and BIFF had allowed Mr. Ali, Mr. Antong, Mr.Madag and Mr.Villacarlos to sell shabu in their far-flung enclaves in exchange for money.
Photo shows the shabu trafficker Ali, now locked in a police detention facility, charged with violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.