COTABATO CITY — The multi-sector Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC) 12 lauded on Wednesday the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 12 for having neutralized two connected drug rings linked to remaining members of the now defunct Dawlah Islamiya terror group.

Citing a report from PDEA 12, Governor Reynaldo S. Tamayo, Jr., presiding chairperson of the RPOC 12, said on Wednesday that anti-narcotics agents first arrested two drug peddlers in an entrapment operation on Thursday last week in Sitio Dalangdang in Barangay Nagpan in Malungon, Sarangani.

Officials of intelligence units of the Army’s 10th Infantry Division and the Police Regional Office (PRO) 12 said three companions of the arrested duo immediately relocated somewhere outside of the municipality after learning about the entrapment.

In a subsequent operation on Monday, four accomplices of the two suspects entrapped in Malungon were arrested by PDEA 12 agents and operatives from different units of the PRO 12 after selling to them shabu in Purok Maunlad in Barangay Apopong in General Santos City.

The four suspects are from Datu Salibo town in Maguindanao del Sur, one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro region.

Charlene R. Magdurulang, regional director of the PDEA 12, told reporters on Wednesday that their agents have confiscated a total of P380,800 worth of crystal meth (shabu) during both operations, planned with the help of officials of PRO 12 and members of the Tamayo-led RPOC 12.

Mr. Tamayo, now in his last term as governor of South Cotabato, told reporters on Wednesday that he is grateful to the confidential tipsters, among them vigilant Moro datus in Maguindanao del Sur and leaders of the Moro communities in his province.

“Public support for the anti-narcotics operations of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Philippine National Police in all regions in the country is so important. We in the Regional Peace and Order Council 12 are supporting both law-enforcement organizations extensively,” Mr. Tamayo said.

Ms. Magdurulang said they have separately charged the two peddlers and their four accomplices with violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. — John Felix M. Unson

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