P98-M WEED DESTROYED IN REGION 1

CAMP FLORENDO, La Union--The authorities have destroyed about P98
million worth of marijuana plants and seedlings in the Ilocos region,
the regional police office reported yesterday.

Chief Supt. Leopoldo Bataoil, the Ilocos regional police director,
said the marijuana were uprooted from 13 separate sites in La Union
and Ilocos Sur as part of an intensive campaign to curb the trade and
production of illegal drugs.

Bataoil said the marijuana plants were uprooted in four operations
initiated by agents of the Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special
Operation Task Group, Regional Intelligence and Investigation
Division, Regional Mobile Group, Provincial Mobile Group of La Union
and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

In their last operation last Nov. 8 to 10, Bataoil said police agents
weeded out 20,000 fully grown marijuana plants, valued at P4 million,
planted in an area of almost 1 hectare hidden between ricefields in
two sites at Kibungan, Benguet, and Sugpon, Ilocos Sur.

Bataoil said the operations prove the police's sincerity in reducing
the supply of illegal drugs in the region and vowed to conduct more
aggressive surveillance of mountainous areas in the region where
marijuana is usually planted.

Marijuana cultivation, Bataoil said, has become a source of funds for
the New People's Army which has also resorted to kidnapping, robbery,
extortion, logging, contract killing and quarrying to finance their activities.

He said the NPA has now become the funding source of legal communist
front organizations which can no longer rely on foreign funds after
they were included in the blacklist of international terrorists.

Bataoil lauded the eradication teams for their concerted effort and
collaboration in fighting illegal drugs and encouraged the community
to cooperate in the campaign by reporting to the police any sighting
of marijuana plantations.

In another operation last March, lawmen uprooted 100,000 fully grown
marijuana plants, valued at P20 million, in Sugpon, Ilocos Sur.

Last year, drug enforcers destroyed 370,000 mature marijuana plants
worth P74 million in two operations. In the first raid, the police
destroyed 170,000 marijuana plants, valued at P34 million, in a
1.2-hectare parcel of land in Santol, La Union.

In the second operation, lawmen uprooted 200,000 plants, worth P40
million, at a 14,000 sq m property in Sugpon, Ilocos Sur.