Herb Ninja

P220M worth of marijuana destroyed in Ifugao

5-23-2005 | Ernie N. Olson Jr. | Sun.Star Baguio

CORDILLERA police uprooted and destroyed an estimated P220,650,000 worth of marijuana in a remote sitio of Ifugao over the weekend.

Chief Superintendent Noe Wong, director of the Police Regional Office (PRO) in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), who personally supervised and witnessed the massive eradication operation the whole day Saturday, said the haul was taken from an illegal plantation with an approximate land area of 11.5-hectares or 115,000 square meters.

Although no suspected cultivator was sighted upon their arrival in the area, police burned about 1,083,000 fully-grown cannabis sativa plants and approximately 316,600 half-grown seedlings of the same illegal hemp plant at Ahin, Tinoc, Ifugao.

Wong said this was aside from another P10,712,500 worth of marijuana also seized by a composite team from the Kapangan Municipal Police Station (MPS), the Kibungan MPS and the 1603rd Provincial Police Mobile Group of Benguet during a similar eradication operation conducted at Sitio Baukok, Badeo, Kibungan, Benguet, last May 15.

He said the earlier haul was made up of an estimated 300 kilograms of dried marijuana leaves with a Dangerous Drug Board (DDB) value of P7,500,000 and 500 grams of dried marijuana seeds worth P12,000.

Another 16,000 fully-grown cannabis sativa plants with a DDB value of P3,200,000 was also uprooted by the same team from a 4,000 square-meter plantation in the same area.

"The illegal drugs were burned on site except for some samples which were brought to the Kapangan MPS for future evidentiary purposes. But no suspect or cultivator was also collared during that earlier eradication operation.

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