COTABATO CITY (October 3, 2024, Friday) — Anti-narcotics agents shot dead an uncooperative shabu dealer and arrested another in an entrapment operation in Koronadal City in South Cotabato province on Wednesday, October 1.

Ranking members of the multi-sector South Cotabato Provincial Peace and Order Council told reporters on Friday, October 3, that agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-12 were forced to neutralize Joemar Casuacillo when he pulled out a pistol and opened fire when he sensed that he and his companion had sold P102,000 worth of shabu to PDEA-12 operatives in Barangay Mabini in Koronadal City.

Koronadal City officials said Casuacillo, a large-scale shabu and marijuana peddler, died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the shootout. Barangay officials in Mabini who helped plot the entrapment operation said the companion of Casuacillo, Demver Dela Cruz, yielded to PDEA-12 agents after the brief gunfight. Besides the 15 grams of shabu, costing P102,000, PDEA-12 agents had also seized Casuacillo’s .45 caliber pistol, with serial numbers 10455, and a fragmentation grenade found inside his sling bag. Benjamin Recites III, director of PDEA-12, said they are to prosecute the now detained companion of the slain shabu dealer for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Recites said their entrapment operation in Barangay Mabini in Koronadal City, the capital of South Cotabato, was assisted by Brig. Gen. Arnold Ardiente, director of the Police Regional Office-12, and the governor of the province, Reynaldo Tamayo, Jr.

He said units of PRO-12 in Koronadal City, the capital of South Cotabato, and the office of Tamayo, now in his third-term as governor, have been actively supporting PDEA-12’s anti-narcotics campaign in all barangays in the area. Photo shows Casuacillo, a long known shabu and marijuana trafficker, killed in a clash with agents of PDEA-12 and policemen.