MNLF leader arrested on drug trafficking raps

COTABATO CITY—Government agents arrested a Moro rebel leader tagged as a big-time drug trafficker during an early Sunday raid on his house in Picong municipality in Lanao del Sur.

In Quezon, policemen raided the hideout of another notorious drug pusher in Candelaria town early Monday and seized sachets believed to be “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) with a street value of P400,000.

Mamintal Ali, also known as “Commander Barrio” in the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), did not resist arrest, according to Felimon Ruiz, regional director of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Found in Ali’s possession were shabu with a street value of P300,000, six assault rifles and a .60 cal. machine gun.

Arrested with him was a militiaman identified as Alinor Sampurna.

Ruiz said the raid was conducted after a PDEA agent posing as buyer managed to obtain a huge supply of shabu from Ali in Picong, a coastal municipality. Ali, he said, was listed as No. 3 “priority target” of the agency.

With a search warrant, PDEA agents backed by soldiers and policemen surrounded the house of Ali in Barangay Liangan, which had been under government surveillance for two weeks.

“Ali was armed to the teeth but he did not resist,” Ruiz said. Aside from several big sachets of shabu, the raiders seized five M-16 rifles, an AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle and an M-60 machinegun.

Senior Supt. Ronaldo Genaro Ylagan, Quezon police chief, said the lawmen swooped down on the house of Virgilio Cueto, 64, in Barangay Malabanban Sur, Candelaria, at 4 a.m. and found 27 plastic heat sealed sachets of the illegal drug, weighing 80 grams.

The raiders, belonging to the Quezon Provincial Public Safety Company and led by Supt. Ranser Evasco, also found one digital weighing scale and three bullets for a .45 cal. pistol.

Judge Eloida R. De Leon-Diaz of the Regional Trial Court Branch 58 in Lucena City issued the search warrant for the raid. Reports from Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao, and Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon