Anti-narcotics agents seized P102,000 worth of shabu from five drug den operators entrapped in Barangay Poblacion Mother in this city at about noon Thursday, August 21, 2025.

Ranking members of the multi-sector Cotabato City Peace and Order Council, which is led by Mayor Bruce Matabalao, told reporters that the suspects, Datu Rasid Candao Emba, Marlon Juliano Mangulon, Zalcarnain Karnain Talib, Joharto Mingka Tuan and Abduracman Nongka Guiamaludin, fell in an entrapment operation planned by officials of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and counterparts in the police.

Gil Cesario Castro, director of PDEA-BARMM, told reporters that the five suspects were immediately frisked and cuffed by their agents and personnel of the Cotabato City Police Office, under Col. Jibin Bongcayao, after selling to them 15 grams of shabu during a tradeoff in the premises of their drug den at Purok Kabuntalan in Barangay Poblacion Mother.

Matabalao had ordered his constituent-community leaders in Barangay Poblacion Mother to help Castro and their agents build an airtight criminal case against Emba, Mangulon, Talib, Tuan and Guimaludin using the P102,000 worth shabu confiscated from them as evidence.

Under state law, operation of a drug den is a non-bailable offense.

Castro said the PDEA-BARMM is thankful to Matabalao, Bongcayao, the personnel of the Cotabato City Police Precinct 1, and the director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, for supporting the entrapment operation that led to the arrest of the five suspects.

PDEA-BARMM agents and police operatives had closed down their drug den in Barangay Poblacion Mother, now guarded by barangay officials and volunteer community watchmen.

Photo shows the five men entrapped in Cotabato City by PDEA-BARMM agents and policemen led by Bongcayao, now locked in a police detention facility. (August 21, 2025, Cotabato City, Bangsamoro Region)