P14-B shabu, marijuana seized, destroyed in Region 1 in 2025
PRO-1
Authorities seized and destroyed shabu and marijuana worth over P14 billion in 2025 in the Ilocos region.
In an interview Tuesday, Police Major Divina Albino, chief of the Police Regional Office-1 information office, said they confiscated and uprooted a total of around P230-million worth of shabu and marijuana in 1,566 operations with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA)-Ilocos regional office.
The operations with PDEA resulted in the arrest of 1,753 individuals, she said.
Albino said police conducted 31 marijuana eradication operations last year, resulting in the destruction of 715,835 marijuana plants and 80,646 seedlings worth over P145.3 million.
"The most successful operations were in December with 283,400 fully grown marijuana plants and 8,000 seedlings destroyed worth P57 million discovered in 57 plantations in the mountainous parts of Sugpon, Licungan, and Danac, Ilocos Sur," she said.
One of the arrests was against a 65-year-old and a minor who were caught putting fertilizer on marijuana seedlings in Mabini, Pangasinan, she added.
Albino said part of the total amount yielded in the campaign against illegal drugs was the recovery of 1,081 packs of floating shabu in the coastal waters of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, and Pangasinan with a total weight of over one million grams worth almost P7 billion.
The discovery of the packs of floating shabu started in June 7 last year, first in Bolinao, Pangasinan worth P863.6 million.
Another big haul by various law enforcement agencies was in October last year in Labrador and Bugallon in Pangasinan, where worth almost P7-billion shabu were seized from the house of a 40-year-old Chinese national and 54-year-old Filipino from Zamboanga City.