Troops join hunt for Cotabato school president wanted for drug possession

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The military has mobilized agents to help the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency locate a government school president wanted for alleged possession of P500,000 worth of shabu.

Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr. of the Western Mindanao Command said Tuesday they can help the police and PDEA search for Samson Molao through intelligence support initiatives.

“We don’t have police powers but our units can help PDEA through intelligence gathering and it is something we have been doing for quite a time now in support of Malacañang’s anti-narcotics drive,” Galvez said.

Molao, president of the Cotabato Foundation College for Science and Technology in Arakan town in North Cotabato, reportedly hails from Pagalungan town in Maguindanao.

Maguindanao is under the jurisdiction of WestMinCom’s largest unit, the Army's 6th Infantry Division. The province is also covered by the Police Regional Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

“Our intelligence units under 6th ID will help locate that person,” Galvez said on Tuesday.

Agents from Manila, led by Levi Ortiz of PDEA’s Special Enforcement Services, recovered on Monday from Molao’s house inside the CFCST campus in Barangay Duroluman, Arakan some P500,000 worth of shabu.

Ortiz and his men also recovered during the raid 13 firearms, including an AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle, an M14 rifle, three M-16 rifles and semi-automatic gauge 12 combat shotguns.

Ortiz told reporters they raided the CFCST campus on Monday due to persistent reports reaching PDEA’s central office purporting that there is large-scale drug trafficking activity going on in the school.

Molao was nowhere in the campus when the group of Ortiz and more than a hundred personnel of the Special Action Force from the North Cotabato provincial police arrived to search for drugs.

The CFCST has long been controversial. A mysterious fire about two years ago razed a dormitory in its campus that was also rocked by a subsequent grenade blast that has remained unsolved.

“I am appealing to the school president to voluntarily surrender to PDEA. He is assured of due process. Running away from this trouble will not do him any good. He can tap lawyers to help him out,” Ortiz told reporters after Monday’s campus raid.

Chief Supertintendent Graciano Mijares, director of PRO-ARMM, said Tuesday he has directed the Maguindanao provincial police to help monitor Molao’s possible presence in the adjoining Pagalungan and Montawal towns, his clan’s known ancestral domiciles.

Mijares said plainclothes agents from the Maguindanao provincial police will coordinate with local officials their effort of helping PDEA find Molao.