9 killed in North Cotabato drug sting

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines — Nine members of a large drug syndicate perished in a gunfight with anti-narcotics agents in an encounter in Matalam town before dawn Saturday.

Superintendent Aldrin Gonzalez, spokesman of the Regional Police Office-12, said seven of the nine drug traffickers were killed on the spot while three others died while being rushed to a hospital.

Six of the slain suspects were identified by relatives as Terereng Salping, Burad salping, Dadting Kasan, Intan Aban, Mauntapo Aban and a certain Orong, all ethnic Maguindanaons.

Combined personnel of the Matalam municipal police, the North Cotabato provincial police and the Army’s 7th Infantry Battalion were to search for drugs in their hideout in Barangay Kilada in Matalam town in North Cotabato, but were force to neutralize them instead when then they opened fire at the raiding teams approaching from different directions.

The joint police-PDEA operation that resulted in the deaths of the nine suspects was carried out based on a warrant issued by Judge Alandrex Betoya of the Regional Trial Court Branch 16 in nearby Kabacan, North Cotabato.

Gonzalez said assorted firearms and a large volume of shabu were recovered beside the cadavers of the slain suspects.

A woman named Bai Intan, arrested while trying to escape from the scene, is now undergoing interrogation.