It was their relatives and religious leaders who gave them away.
Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Mapacapaz, director the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, announced on Sunday, June 8, that policemen had easily arrested five shabu dealers in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte while having pot session in their hideout, raided with the help of their relatives and local Muslim preachers long annoyed by their illegal activities.
Macapaz said all five suspects, caught in the act of sniffing shabu together, shall be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 using the P10,000 worth of shabu seized from them as evidence.
The five individuals, John Rodriguez, Hamdan Lumambas, Samsudin Salik, Jaiden Sidek and their female cohort, Yasmin Ventic, were immediately clamped down by personnel of the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station, led by Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, in an operation last Wednesday, June 4, in Barangay Limbo in the municipality.
All five suspects are known in Sultan Kudarat and in nearby Cotabato City for their shabu peddling activities.
Madin said they raided the hideout of the five suspects after villagers, mostly related to them by blood, reported their suspicious convergence in their den and were, subsequently, noticed sniffing shabu together.
Elders of the suspects had told reporters that they had advised them many times over to change for good, but did not listen.
Local officials had said that among the tipsters who led Madin’s team to the lair of the suspects, from where they sold shabu to local contacts, were Muslim preachers supporting their municipal government’s anti-narcotics campaign. (JFU, June 8, 2025, Cotabato City)
