Another municipal councilor nabbed for `shabu' peddling
Breaking News • 21:20 PM Thu Feb 23, 2017
871
By:
John Unson
MAGUINDANAO
--- Lawmen arrested on Wednesday another municipal councilor in Maguindanao
province for large-scale drug trafficking, the second in just three weeks.
Dennis
Sandigan Utto was cornered by agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency
in his hideout in Rajah Buayan town in Maguindanao.
Utto is an
incumbent member of the Sangguning Bayan in Guindulungan town, also in the
second district of Maguindanao.
Relatives said
he relocated to Barangay Mileb in Rajah Buayan last year after two attempts by
authorities to arrest him for operating a drug ring that distributed
methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu) in the province.
Bryan Babang,
PDEA’s director for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said they learned
of Utto’s exact location in Barangay Mileb from informants, among them vigilant
community elders.
Utto was
immediately clamped down in PDEA’s detention facility in Cotabato City, to be
charged with violation of the Philippine Dangerous Drugs Act.
The operation
that resulted in the capture of Utto was preceded by the arrest three weeks ago
in Cotabato City of Fatima Daud Baliwan.
Baliwan is an
incumbent member of the municipal council in Northern Kabuntalan in the first
district of Maguindanao.
Baliwan, who
is president of the Association of Barangay Captains in Northern Kabuntalan, is
an ex-officio member of the town’s municipal council.
She is
included in PDEA-ARMM’s list of top ten most wanted shabu dealer in
Maguindanao.
Also arrested
along with Baliwan is her son, Norodin, and their two bodyguards.
The agents who
arrested them along a busy street in Cotabato City, acting on a tip, found
shabu in their vehicle, a Toyota Land Cruiser bearing license plates XSF-868.