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COTABATO CITY: City Mayor Muslimin
Sema here reproached media reports circulating in neighboring North
Cotabato province citing this city as source of illegal drugs in
Central Mindanao.
“Such report
is inappropriate and degrading, considering that drug traffickers
use this city only as transshipment point from their sources in
nearby cities and provinces,” he explained.
The
drug-related report allegedly came from the office of the Philippine
Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in North Cotabato.
“Even the
PDEA-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao [ARMM] office has no
concrete proof that will corroborate such assertion,” Sema pointed
out.
Accordingly,
the PDEA-North Cotabato asserted that big shipments of the illegal
shabu substance are distributed from here by drug traffickers to the
town of Kabacan and Kidapawan City in the province.
Sema urged the
North Cotabato media to be more balanced and accurate in their
reports.
This developed
as PDEA-ARMM agents collared this week a former policeman long
wanted for illegal drug activities in the region.
PDEA-ARMM
chief, Col. Rene Orbe, said suspect Datumanong Lauban, an
erstwhile member of the Cotabato City police force, was nabbed in an
entrapment they had set up on Almonte Extension here.
 --PNA
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