More than a kilo of shabu seized in Lanao and Maguindanao operations

COTABATO CITY --- Authorities arrested two women and seized from them more than a kilo of shabu in separate operations over the weekend in Lanao del Sur and in Maguindanao.The first to fall was Rainana Disalo, intercepted by combined personnel of the Army’s 65thInfantry Battalion, the Lanao del Sur provincial police office and the Drug Enforcement Agency at a checkpoint in Saguiran town, en route to Marawi City carrying some P3 million worth of shabu in her car.The operation that resulted in the arrest of Disalo and a 10-year-old girl, now in the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, was jointly supervised by the police director of Lanao delSur, Senior Supt. Agustin Tello, and Col. Joselito Pastrana, commanding officer of the 65thIB.Tello said he and Pastrana learned of the plan of Disalo to smuggle shabu from Iligan City to Marawi from her neighbors and relatives.Disalo had been charged with violation of the Philippine Dangerous Drugs Act in a local court by a group of joint PDEA and police operatives.Disalo’s arrest was preceded by the joint Army-PDEA-police raid at the house of municipal councilor Saiden Utto in Guindulungan town in the second district of Maguindanao.Utto was out of town when authorities searched for drugs in his house based on a warrant issued by Judge Bansawan Ibrahim of the Regional Trial Court Branch 13 in Cotabato City.The raiding team recovered from the house of Utto, a member of the Sangguniang Bayan in Guindulungan, about P200,000 worth of shabu, an M-14 assault rifle, a 12 gauge shotgun and a .45 caliber pistol.The raiding team immediately detained Utto’s wife at a facility of PDEA’s office for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao at Pedro Colina Hill in Cotabato City.