P13.7M marijuana plants uprooted by cops in Agusan Sur

Marijuana (AFP FILE PHOTO)

SAN FRANCISCO, Agusan del Sur – Police uprooted some P13 million worth of marijuana plants in a raid on a 2.5-hectare plantation in a remote hinterland village in Loreto town over the weekend.

Senior Inspector Aldrin Salinas, Loreto police chief, said operatives uprooted some 29,000 marijuana plants in the first site and another 25,000 in another area.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency placed at P13,775,000 the market value of the uprooted plants.

He said the raiding team from the regional, provincial and local police forces with the support of the Army’s 26th Infantry Battalion travelled on a rugged 61-kilometer road on board a military truck and trekked another 10 kilometers to reach the sub-village of Mactan in Kasapa I village, near the boundary of Bukidnon province.

This is the third biggest marijuana haul in this interior town situated along the Agusan river. A few days after President Duterte assumed office in July, operatives hauled a total of P26 million worth of marijuana plants in the same neighboring areas in separate raids in a week.

Salinas said it took them more than a month of intelligence work to confirm the presence of the large marijuana plantation.

He believed the plantation had been abandoned for months by the lumad growers after they learned about the intensive police anti-illegal drug drive spearheaded by the new Philippine President as part of his centerpiece program.

Most of the uprooted weeds were burned in the area while some were brought to the headquarters of the provincial police in Prosperidad town.

Loreto Mayor Ligaya Otaza admitted that some lumad residents in the area have turned to growing marijuana instead of rice and corn because of the difficulties of transporting their produce. The illegal weed could be easily carried in their backpacks and have thriving markets in the town centers of the province and even in neighboring Bukidnon province.

Kasapa I Village chair Allan Manguinimba said a well-known Manobo clan has been behind the propagation of marijuana farms.

Manguinimba confessed that poverty has driven lumad settlers to grow marijuana and it has been going on for a long time amid government failure to open up economic opportunities in the area.  SFM/rga