COTABATO CITY – Police and anti-narcotics operatives arrested early Friday a former village chair, who was running for village councilor in his village, and seized from him 83 sachets of suspected shabu.
Combined operatives of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), local police and soldiers from the 5thSpecial Force Battalion, served the search warrant against Alladin Matabalao Darping at his residence in Sitio Kapinpilan in Barangay Mother Kalanganan here around 1 a.m.
Director Juvenal Azurin of the PDEA in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-ARMM) said the operation was launched after two weeks of surveillance operations against Darping.
“We recovered 83 small sachets of shabu, bank documents and paraphernalia from the suspect,” Azurin said, adding that the suspect, who is now in PDEA custody, did not resist arrest.
PDEA estimates the street value of the shabu seized from Darping at about more than P100,000. /muf