P6.2 million marijuana destroyed in Kalinga

TINGLAYAN, Kalinga – Some 31,200 pieces of fully-grown marijuana plants valued at P6.2 million planted in a 5,200-square meter land area were destroyed by police and anti-narcotics operatives here at Sitio Naadchil, Barangay Bugnay last week.

Senior Supt. Victor K. Wanchakan, Kalinga provincial director, said the marijuana eradication operation was a product of their massive surveillance operations in marijuana plantation sites in remote villages of the town.

“The bad weather did not hinder our government forces from uprooting and burning on site most of the marijuana plants. We had to work double time in the area,” Wanchakan said.

He said troops from Kalinga Provincial Anti-illegal Drug Special Operations Task group (PAIDSOTG), Provincial Intelligence Branch (PIB), Regional Public Safety Battalion (RPSB) and Tinglayan Municipal Police Station and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in the Cordillera joined the operation.

 Aside from the remote villages of Benguet, marijuana plantation sites are also found in the remote communities of Benguet, Ifugao and Mountain Province in the Cordillera and Ilocos Sur and La Union in the Ilocos region.

 He revealed more marijuana eradication operations will be conducted in the remote areas of Kalinga in the future once their surveillance operations in other identified marijuana plantation sites will turn out to be positive in order to help significantly reduce the supply of the illegal hemp in the market and contribute in removing the tag of the Cordillera as the primary source of high grade marijuana being sold in the different parts of the country.

 Cordillera had been identified by law enforcement and antidrug abuse agencies as the source of almost 80 percent of the marijuana being circulated in the different parts of the country.