Cops sound alarm on PUV drivers set as drug mules

By Erwin Beleo

CAMP DIGO SILANG, La Union -- Provincial Police Director Senior Supt. Angelito Dumangeng has initiated moves to look into and address reports that tricycle, jeepney and mini bus drivers are being tapped as illegal drug mules and couriers in the province.

Dumangeng said he has coordinated with the Land Transportation Office (LTO), Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) to help verify the said reports and arrest those involved, if any.

“In order to get the big bosses, we begin with their smaller ‘tentacles,’ Dumangeng said amid the arrest recently of an alleged mini-bus driver’s drug supplier who was posted in gasoline station and a tricycle driver who reportedly moonlights as shabu supplier to various karaoke and beer joints”.

Dumangeng also coordinated with the LTOs’ Flying Squad to help pursue undocumented motorcycles and other types of vehicles used in crimes  and transport vehicles used in other crimes such as marijuana or as illegal logging carriers.

Last month, the joint Operation Plan “One Time, Big Time” and “LambatSibat” programs resulted in the arrest of  57 illegal drug pushers and 32 other wanted criminal elements, including the three most wanted men in Region I.

Three marijuana plantations in La Union were discovered and the 8,000 fully grown marijuana plants eventually destroyed.

 “We in the police only implement the laws by catching them but the LGUs may want to give the cultivators an alternative livelihood to prevent them to grow marijuana repeatedly,” Dumangeng said.

He added that the growers this time, plant their crops concealed under bamboo groves and under thick vegetations to prevent, even an air survey, from discovered it while they are still growing.

“It is very hard for us because after destroying it, they plant again, knowing that the place is also remote and without roads,” PDEA Dep. Dir. Edgar Hapalla lamented.

The tri-boundaries La Union, Ilocos Sur and Benguet are known to be the locations of big marijuana plantations in northern Luzon.The laws by catching them but the LGUs may want to give the cultivators an alternative livelihood to prevent them to grow marijuana repeatedly,” Dumangeng said.