GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews/24 January) – Police authorities in Sultan Kudarat province filed charges on Tuesday against a rookie policeman assigned in Cotabato City and a civilian who were arrested for alleged possession of illegal drugs, unlicensed firearm and explosives at a checkpoint in Isulan town last Friday.
Senior Insp. Eugenio Malilin, Isulan police chief, identified the suspects as Police Officer 1 Morshed Manibpel, 27, who was listed as an active member of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Maritime
Group-12’s special reaction unit, and Nasrula Pamanag, 28, a resident of Talitay town in Maguindanao.
He said the two were charged before the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office for violation of Republic Act 9165 or the Dangerous Drugs Law and Republic Acts 8294 and 9156 for illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Malilin said the suspects were arrested after they allegedly yielded 11 packs of suspected metamphethamine hydrochloride or shabu worth around P500,000 during a search at a police checkpoint along the national highway in Barangay Kenram in Isulan town.
He said they also seized from the duo a government-issued lite M-16 Armalite rifle, an unlicensed .45 caliber handgun, a fragmentation grenade, assorted live bullets and some P40,000 in cash.
“He (PO1 Manibpel) was wearing his full PNP uniform that time and we found the illegal drugs hidden underneath his pants,” Malilin said in a radio interview.
The police official said they intercepted the suspects based on a report they received Friday morning from the Police Regional Office’s 12’s intelligence unit that a “uniformed man” carrying stashed illegal
drugs was then en route to Isulan town aboard a private vehicle.
He said they immediately set up checkpoints along the town’s entry and exit points and conducted a search on vehicles passing the area.
Malilin said they later stopped PO1 Manibpel and Pamanag while they were on their way to the town proper of Isulan aboard a maroon multicab truck.
“It turned out that the uniformed man identified in the report was a PNP member – PO1 Manibpel,” he said.
Malilin added the intelligence report noted that PO1 Manibpel, who also yielded positive for drug use in a test conducted over the weekend by the Police Regional Office 12 crime laboratory, allegedly came from a drug-related transaction in Koronadal City before he was arrested. (Allen V. Estabillo/MindaNews)