4 shabu dealers linked to southern terror groups arrested in Central Mindanao

COTABATO CITY — Four more shabu dealers who allegedly shared earnings with remnants of the two now defunct Mindanao terror groups were arrested in separate police operations in two Central Mindanao provinces within just three days.

Barangay officials and policemen, led by Police Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, foiled on Sunday, May 24, the turnover of about P170,000 worth of shabu by suspected peddlers to their contacts in Dalumangcob, Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao del Norte.

Captain Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Monday that personnel of the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Station, led by Madin, along with barangay officials in Dalumangcob, arrested one of the individuals involved in the alleged delivery of shabu, which was foiled with the help of vigilant villagers.

The suspect, identified as Aga Dala Badtican, initially fled with his accomplices but was eventually cornered and arrested by barangay officials and police after a brief chase. He is now in police custody. 

Residents in Dalumangcob alerted community leaders and Madin after noticing the suspects in the area speaking with one another.

Badtican’s companions managed to escape when they sensed that barangay officials and police were approaching their location. 

Police and barangay officials seized from Badtican P170,000 worth of shabu, which will be used as evidence in filing charges against him for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Officials from intelligence units of PRO-BAR and the Army’s 6th Infantry Division confirmed to reporters on Monday that Badtican, a resident of Barangay Poblacion in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, is linked to remaining members of the now inactive Dawlah Islamiya terror group and remitted fractions of his income from peddling of shabu and marijuana to them in exchange for access to areas around their hideouts.

Police also separately entrapped three shabu traffickers in Barangay Tinumigues in Lambayong town, Sultan Kudarat in Region 12 last Thursday, who were eportedly connected to members of the Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

The three male suspects, two of them minors, were immediately frisked and cuffed after allegedly selling 75 grams of shabu worth P510,000 to non-uniformed policemen from the Lambayong Municipal Police Station and the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Police Office during a buy-bust operation in a secluded area in Barangay Tinumigues.

Local executives and police officials who cooperated in the entrapment operation withheld, for the meantime, the identities of the three detained suspects, while efforts to locate their seven accomplices in Lambayong are still underway. 

Intelligence operatives of the Army’s 601st Infantry Brigade and its battalions told reporters that all the three suspects, the two of whom are now under the joint custody of the Lambayong local government unit and the police due to their status as minors, also allegedly peddled shabu in far-flung areas in Maguindanao del Sur and in Sultan Kudarat provinces where members of the Dawlah Islamiya and the BIFF, who have not yet surrendered to the government yet, are holding out.