AFP FILE PHOTO
KIDAPAWAN CITY, North Cotabato, Philippines—Police on Tuesday uprooted about 5,000 fully grown marijuana plants camouflaged by corn and other plants on a farm in a remote village in Maguindanao after a resident tipped off the authorities about the existence of the plantation.
Senior Insp. Erwin Tabura, chief of police in the town of Matanog, said raid was conducted on the outskirts of the village of Malundo.
After confirming the information about the marijuana plantation, Tabura said he organized a team and coordinated with the Army’s 37th Infantry Battalion for a joint operation.
The lawmen were amazed by the size of the marijuana plantation and how the plants were hidden from sight by corn and plants, Tabura said.
He said the one-hectare marijuana plantation was raided at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday and it took the agents five hours to uproot all the plants.
Tabura said the plantation owner was nowhere to be found and he surmised the farmer might have been tipped off about the coming of the raiders, who had walked more than a kilometer from the highway linking Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur.
Tabura said the marijuana plants were to have been harvested next month and might have fetched more than P2 million in the market. He said the police kept some of the marijuana plants as evidence but burned the rest.
Tabura did not disclose the identity of the plantation owner, who is now the object of a police hunt.
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