Four Shabu Traffickers Linked to Dawlah Islamiya Remnants Arrested in Cotabato City

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Four suspected drug traffickers, reportedly linked to remnants of the now-defunct Dawlah Islamiya, were arrested in separate police entrapment operations in three areas in this city on Tuesday, July 28. Local executives had told reporters on Wednesday that all four suspects, Johair Dumagay Manabilang, Saddam Minalang Ali and the cohorts Haider Manibpel Unos and King Manibpel Bago, are now detained in different police detention facilities in Cotabato City. Officials of intelligence units under the 601st and 602nd Infantry Brigades of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division informed reporters on Wednesday morning that all four suspects are in their lists of traffickers of shabu and marijuana sharing fractions of their earnings to a few remaining members of the now inactive Dawlah Islamiya to enable them to freely sell their illegal merchandise in far-flung areas in Cotabato, Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces. Captain Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, and Col Jibin Bongcayao, director of the Cotabato City Police Office, separately told reporters that the four suspects were entrapped in operations laid with the help of Mayor Bruce Matabalao and his constituent-barangay leaders. The first to fall in the three operations is Manabilang, who was immediately frisked and cuffed by personnel of the City Police Drug Enforcement Unit, led by Lt. Patricia Bueno, after selling shabu to them in Purok Matigkel in Barangay Rosary Heights 7. Ali was entrapped by a police team, under Major Eduardo Malicdem, in Purok 6 in Barangay Poblacion 6 at about dusk on Tuesday. The accomplices Unos and Bago were both arrested in an entrapment operation about four hours later in Purok Talainged in Barangay Tamontaka 1, together carried out by Capt. Nurar-Rahman Abdulla, chief of the Cotabato City Police Precinct 3, and his subordinate operatives. The now second-term Matabalao, chairperson of the multi-sector Cotabato City Peace and Order Council, and Bongcayao separately said they are thankful to the confidential informants who reported the illegal activities of the four shabu peddlers, enabling police units in the city to embark on the separate operations that resulted in their arrest and confiscation of shabu. Bongcayao said Matabalao and barangay officials in Rosary Heights 7, in Poblacion 6 and in Tamontaka 1 had assured to help prosecute Manabilang, Ali, Unos and Bago for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 using the shabu confiscated from them in separate entrapment operations as evidence.