COTABATO CITY (April 10, 2026) — Policemen arrested six more shabu dealers in separate entrapment operations in four areas in this city in less than 24 hours, enforced after their close relatives reported their illegal activities to the office of Cotabato City Mayor Bruce Matabalao.
The six suspects, Michael Igno Dahili, Gerald Tenorio Tagalogon, Anton Castillion Cedeño, Ali Salilaguia Suga, Quetze Lauban Wahab and Harris Nandog Gaduan, are now locked in separate detention facilities of the Cotabato City Police Office (CCPO), awaiting prosecution in court.
Dahili, Tagalogon and Cedeño were arrested before dawn Wednesday in an entrapment operation, involving agents of the City Police Drug Enforcement Unit, led by Lt. Patricia Bueno and the director of the CCPO, Col. Jibin Bongcayao, in a residential area in Barangay Rosary Heights 11.
Bongcayao and Brig. Gen. De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, separately told reporters that barangay and city officials were instrumental in the arrest of the three suspects, immediately detained by their subordinate-operatives after procuring from them shabu during a tradeoff in Barangay Rosary Heights 11.
Suga was arrested by combined non-uniformed personnel of the Cotabato City Police Station 3, under Capt. Eduardo Malicdem, the CCPO after selling to them his illegal merchandise at Purok Balabaran in Barangay Rosary Heights 10 on Tuesday afternoon.
Wahab was immediately frisked and cuffed by policemen from the Cotabato City Police Station 2, led by Capt. Anuar Mambatao, and officials of the CCPO, after turning over to them a sachet of shabu in Purok 3 in the Bishop Mongeau area in Barangay Rosary Heights 9, Cotabato City at about dusk Tuesday.
Gaduan was entrapped at almost midnight Tuesday along Sinsuat Avenue in Barangay Rosary Heights 7 by anti-narcotics agents from the Cotabato City Police Station 2 and the CCPO.
Bongcayao and his superiors in PRO-BAR separately said it was for the support of Matabalao, who, as mayor, is chairperson of the multi-sector Cotabato City Peace and Order Council, and his constituent-barangay officials that the six longtime shabu traffickers got busted in four separate entrapment operations from between past noontime Tuesday until early Wednesday.
Bongcayao said local executives and relatives of the suspects who reported to Matabalao and his constituent-barangay leaders their circulation of shabu to contacts around observed from a distance the entrapment operations that led to their arrest and confiscation from them of shabu that the CCPO and PRO-BAR shall use as evidence in prosecuting them for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
Photo shows the the three shabu dealers entrapped before dawn Wednesday in Barangay Rosary Heights 11, now all detained, to be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. [][][]
