PDEA agents recover P1.7 million worth of shabu in Cotabato sting

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Authorities seized P1.7 million worth of shabu from a drug dealer who fell in an entrapment here Wednesday.

Israel Mamalangka, 36, did not resist arrest when agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao frisked and cuffed him after a tradeoff with a buyer disguised as a drug dependent.

Mamalangka, an ethnic Maguindanaon from Talayan town in Maguindanao, resides in Barangay Rosary Heights 10 here from where he distributed narcotics.

Juvenal Azurin, director of PDEA-ARMM, said Thursday the operation that resulted in the arrest of Mamalangka was assisted by the office of Mayor Cynthia Guiani-Sayadi, the Cotabato City police, and the Army’s 5th Special Forces Battalion guarding the 37 barangays here.

Besides the P1.7 million worth of shabu, PDEA-ARMM agents also recovered a motorcycle Mamalangka used in delivering drugs to retailers in the city.

Azurin said they learned of the drug-trafficking activities of Mamalangka from vigilant residents of Barangay Rosary Heights 10 supporting the city mayor's local anti-narcotics campaign.

He is now clamped down in the detention facility here of PDEA-ARMM, to be prosecuted for violation of Republic Act 9165.

The RA 9165, which outlawed sale and possession of dangerous drugs and other regulated substances, is also known as the Philippine Anti-Dangerous Drugs Act.