COTABATO CITY (December 11, 2025) — Three shabu dealers, peddling their illegal merchandise to lowly villagers, were entrapped in separate police operations in different areas in Cotabato City on Tuesday, December 9, laid with the help local residents.

The three suspects — Tonton Datuan Salasal, 30, Mharex Guialudin Edza, 47, and the 29-year-old Prince Khalid Sacandal — are now detained in different detention facilities in Cotabato City, awaiting prosecution for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

The three of them have eluded several attempts by the police to entrap them in Cotabato City in the past two years, according to barangay officials and traditional Moro leaders overtly supporting the joint anti-narcotics campaign of Mayor Bruce Matabalao and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

Police Brig Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director of PRO-BAR, said on Wednesday that the three suspects were entrapped one after another on Tuesday by different police units led by Col. Jibin Bongcayao, director of the Cotabato City Police Office.

De Guzman said the separate entrapment operations that resulted in their arrest were supported by barangay officials and the office of Matabalao, who is chairman of the multi-sector Cotabato City Peace and Order Council.

The first to fall in the three entrapment operations was Salasal, who was arrested after selling P544.00 worth of shabu to combined operatives of the City Drug Enforcement Unit, under Lt. Patricia Bueno, the Cotabato City Police Station 1 and other PRO-BAR units at Zone 1 at the PC Hill area in Barangay Rosary Heights 1.

Two hours later, policemen from the Cotabato City Police Station 2, under Captain Anuar Mambatao, and personnel of other PRO-BAR units clamped down Edza, from whom they seized P500 worth of shabu, during a tradeoff in Purok Bagdad in Mother Barangay Tamontaka.

The third suspect, Sacandal, was immediately frisked and cuffed by police agents, led by Major Teofisto Ferrer, Jr., after they procured from him P544 worth of shabu in Purok 4 in Barangay Rosary Heights 9.

De Guzman said PRO-BAR is grateful to the city and barangay officials who helped Bongcayao and his subordinates plan the entrapment operations that resulted in the arrest of the three suspects.

Photo shows one of the three entrapment operations in Cotabato City on Tuesday, which led to the arrest of Sacandal. He is one of the three shabu traffickers busted in three separate successive stings on the same day by different police units and local officials.