MARIJUANA PLANTATION BURNED

GENERAL SANTOS CITY: Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency
seized Saturday P225,000 worth of illegal drugs and burned a marijuana
plantation in Napilay Village, Upper Ticulab, Maitum, Saran-gani province.

Successive operations have resulted in the arrest of a notorious drug
carrier from Cotabato City.

Police Officer 2 Jonas Abadilla, in a report to Chief Insp. Jessie
Estrada, PDEA regional director for Central Mindanao, identified the
suspected drug pusher as Rey Limba Sitre Montang, 18, a resident of
Dalican, Cotabato City.

Montang was arrested after his alleged accomplice, Peter Estrera, 55,
was nabbed in a buy bust on 3rd Road, Barangay Calumpang, here.

Badilla said that government agents led by Senior Insp. Amado G. Tana
used Estrera to contact Montang, who agreed to deliver methamphetamine
hydrochloride (shabu) at a fast-food parking lot in Tacurong City.

Seized from Montang were three sachets of shabu weighing 15 grams
each, with an estimated street value of P75,000.

Montang said a Cotabato-based drug syndicate, led by a certain Boy
Lima, had ordered him to deliver the drugs to their associates in
General Santos City. He refused to elaborate.

Badilla said drug syndicates are using new faces in the drug trade to
protect senior members from the agency's tight surveillance.

Undersecretary Anselmo Avenido, PDEA director general, has directed a
new offensive against illegal-drug laboratories in the Autonomous
Region of Muslim Mindanao as well as Central and Southern Mindanao.