News update Marijuana plantation destroyed in Ifugao

LAGAWE, Ifugao - At least P1.5 million worth of marijuana plants and seedlings were successfully destroyed by combined police operatives and anti-narcotics agents during an anti-insurgency operation in Sitio Lana, Barangay Luhong, Tinoc town, this province, last Friday. Security forces, composed of elements from the Cordillera Regional Public Safety Management Battalion led by Inspector Cesar Sab-it, the Tinoc Municipal Police Station and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in Cordillera, carried out the destruction of the marijuana plantation.

Superintendent Leon Tallo, public information officer of the Police Regional Office in the Cordillera Administrative Region (PRO-CAR), said government forces were able to destroy over 6,500 fully-grown marijuana plants and over 6,500 marijuana seedlings in the remote sitio.

Tallo said the destroyed plantation had marijuana with a total market value of at least R1.5 million based on prevailing prices as assessed by the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB). Initially, the troops were on an internal security operations in the area when they chanced upon the marijuana plants reportedly intercropped with some vegetables in a secluded place, thus, they were forced to uproot the same and burned them.

Samples of the seedlings and fully-grown plants were extracted from the ground as evidence, Tallo said. The tri-boundaries of Benguet, Ifugao and Mountain province; Benguet, La Union and Ilocos Sur; Mountain Province, Ifugao and Kalinga; and Mountain province, Abra and Ilocos Sur have long been identified as marijuana-producing areas. (Dexter A. See)