BULUAN, Maguindanao—Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu announced that more than 6,000 drug pushers, dealers and users in the province have surrendered in the past two weeks, adding that the surrenderees were scared of being killed in the ongoing nationwide anti-drug police operations initiated by President Rodrigo Duterte.
The announcement was confirmed by Senior Supt. Nikson Muksan, police provincial director, who disclosed that 6,097 drug offenders gave themselves up in various Maguindanao municipalities. The latest surrenderees numbered 917 adults and adolescents from Pandag town last week.
Muksan said the Pandag mass surrender was preceded by the yielding of notorious drug trafficker Abdulatip Pendaliday who turned over an M16 Armalite rifle and a .50-caliber Barret sniping rifle.
He noted that Pendaliday operates a province-wide drug syndicate that distributes methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu to different barangays in all Maguindanao big towns.
Muksan told the media that Maguindanao “now accounts for the most number of drug pushers and users that gave up to the police in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s four other provinces of Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.”
The provincial police chief credited Mangudadatu, his younger sibling ARMM regional assemblyman Khadadeh and the Maguindanao-based Army 6th Infantry Division for helping carry out Police Chief Director Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa’s anti-narcotics campaign in the province and other areas of the country.