4 nabbed in separate drug busts in South Cotabato

KORONADAL CITY, Philippines - Four drug traffickers were arrested on Wednesday in separate anti-narcotics operations in the city and nearby towns as a result of a continuing police crackdown that started last month.  

More than 20 large-scale drug peddlers have been arrested here and in neighboring towns in South Cotabato in the past four weeks.

Policemen first arrested Arnel Demos while on his way to roadside motel along Roxas Street in the city bringing with him methamphetamine hydrochloride, most known as shabu, he was to sell to a buyer.

Demos had confessed to peddling of shabu to motel guests holding pot sessions in its rooms.

Combined police agents and barangay officials intercepted two hours later in Santo Niño town in South Cotabato drug dealer Reynaldo Huinda, riding a motorcycle en route to an interior barangay to sell shabu.

Chief Inspector Joel Fuerte of the Santo Niño municipal police said his subordinates who arrested Huinda recovered from him shabu and drug sniffing paraphernalia.

Huinda is now detained, awaiting prosecution.

The arrest of Demos and Huinda came after operatives of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) nabbed a couple, Noven Alvarez and Darlene Cabrera, inside a beer joint along Gen. Santos Drive in Koronadal City.

Alvarez and Cabrera, both distributing shabu to customers of different videoke pubs in the city, voluntarily yielded after sensing that they had been surrounded by PDEA agents.   

In a statement Thursday, PDEA’s Region 12 office said the couple has long been under surveillance by agents after learning of their illegal activities from barangay officials.