Drug den shut down, 5 shabu traffickers arrested in Mindanao

October 29, 2026 | 6:33pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency arrested five shabu peddlers, four of them together operating a drug den, in separate entrapment operations in this city and in Libungan town in Cotabato province on Tuesday, October 27.

The first to fall in the two entrapment operations are four traffickers, one of them a woman, immediately detained by agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PDEA-BARRM) in Muslim Mindanao and policemen after selling to them shabu right in their drug den in Barangay Rosary Heights 10 in this city.

George Paul Alcovindas, director of PDEA-BARMM, told reporters on Thursday that their agents had seized from the suspects P206,720 worth of shabu during the entrapment operation, laid with the help of policemen under Col. Jibin Bongcayao, director of the Cotabato City Police Office, and Mayor Bruce Matabalao.

Barangay officials in Rosary Heights 10 in Cotabato City, BARMM’s regional capital, had told reporters that the four suspects, now locked in a detention facility, facilitated pot sessions in their drug den for buyers of their merchandise.

PDEA-BARMM agents and policemen immediately shut down the drug den of the four suspects in Barangay Rosary Heights 10, now guarded by volunteer community watchmen.  Under state law, drug den operation is a non-bailable criminal offense.

Agents of PDEA 12 also arrested on Tuesday a male shabu dealer in a separate entrapment operation in Barangay Barongis in Libungan town in Cotabato, one of the four provinces in Region 12. The operation was enforced with the help of the relatives and neighbors of the suspect opposing his trafficking of narcotics, for them annoying and shameful.

Charlene Magdurulang, director of PDEA 12, said the operation that led to his detention also resulted in the confiscation from him of P17, 680 worth of shabu.

The suspect, whom local executives said had peddled shabu in barangays in Cotabato’s adjoining Libungan and Midsayap towns, is now in the custody of PDEA 12, according to Magdurulang.

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