Provincial leaders cite PDEA-BARMM’s operation feats in Tawi-Tawi

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April 3, 2026 | 4:28pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The team of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Tawi-Tawi had received two citations for having entrapped in recent months elusive local and foreign dealers together circulating shabu in communities under their jurisdiction.

Among those reportedly arrested in separate entrapment operations in different towns by the provincial team in Tawi-Tawi of the PDEA-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao were Chinese nationals, who, along with their Filipino accomplices, are now detained, being prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Local officials had confirmed that the foreigners entrapped by PDEA-BARMM agents in Tawi-Tawi are linked to suppliers of dried marijuana from islands in the Indonesian seas, close to the territorial waters of Tawi-Tawi, one of the five provinces in the Bangsamoro region.

Radio reports on Friday, April 3, in cities and provinces in the Bangsamoro region stated that Vice Gov. Al-syed Sali, the presiding chairperson of the Tawi-Tawi Sangguniang Panlalawigan, personally handed over last Wednesday to the team leader of the PDEA-BARMM in their province, Abraham Kalim, a citation plaque in appreciation of the agency’s accomplishments in its provincial anti-narcotics campaign.

Sali said they are grateful to the PDEA-BARMM team in Tawi-Tawi and their regional director, Edgar Jubay, who is based in Cotabato City, for their provincial operation accomplishments achieved with the support of units in the province of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, under its director, Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman and Army Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, commander of the military's Western Mindanao Command.

Kalim had received a separate citation plaque for their team from Tawi-Tawi’s provincial executives, under Gov. Ysmael Sali, during the Gabi ng Parangal event in Bongao town, the provincial capital, on Tuesday night.

The governor of Tawi-Tawi is the presiding chairperson of their multi-sector provincial peace and order council, whose members were also instrumental in the arrest of shabu and marijuana traffickers during entrapment operations by PDEA-BARMM agents in the province in recent months.