Anti-narcotics agents burned P11 million worth of marijuana shrubs uprooted in an operation in Barangay Pitogo in Kalingalan-Caluang, Sulu on Friday, February 22.
Gil Cesario Castro, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, told reporters on Saturday, February 22, that the operation was premised on reports by local officials about the propagation of marijuana in Barangay Pitogo by gunmen led by a certain Mahdi, a large-scale narcotics-trafficker.
He and his four followers managed to run away when they noticed PDEA-BARMM agents, soldiers and policemen approaching their marijuana farm from two directions.
Castro said the operation was assisted by soldiers under the military’s Western Mindanao Command and officials of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.
Sulu Gov. Abdusakur Tan, Sr. had ordered municipal officials in Kalingalan-Caluang to help the PDEA-BARMM build airtight criminal cases against the propagators of the marijuana plants, now subject of a joint police-military manhunt.(February 22,2025)