MILF uproots marijuana plantation in Philippines

By Hader Glang

ZAMBOANGA CITY, the Philippines (AA) - The Philippines' one-time largest Muslim rebel group has uprooted two hectares of marijuana plants in southern Mindanao island in support of President Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs.

News broadcaster ABS-CBN reported Monday that Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members located the full-grown plants in Cotabato province over the weekend after receiving reports of a marijuana plantation in Tupig village in Carmen town.

After being uprooted, the plants -- found between cornfields and banana trees near a river -- were burned.

The MILF, which signed a deal with the government last month agreeing to coordinate plans to combat the scourge of illegal drugs in areas the group considers its territory, was unable to apprehend the owner.

ABS-CBN reported that some locals tending their farmlands near the plantation were reluctance about providing any information regarding the plants’ growers.

A spokesman for the MILF's Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, Von Al-Haq, was quoted as saying that the operation represented the MILF’s “continuous support” for the government's war against illegal drugs.

Under the July deal, all government agencies have been given the primary responsibility to implement anti-illegal drugs programs in MILF-controlled areas.

Last year, the former rebel group, which is engaged in an ongoing peace process with the government in southern Mindanao island, launched its own "war on drugs" under which thousands of drug pushers were identified.

The agreement provides mechanisms and procedures to be observed by both sides in the conduct of law enforcement operation in the MILF-controlled areas.

In 2014, the MILF and the government signed a peace deal that would have been sealed by a proposed law that would have replaced the current Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao with a more inclusive Bangsamoro autonomous region.

The Bangsamoro Basic Law, however, stalled in Congress earlier this year, as it adjourned for campaigning for the May 9 polls won by Duterte.

According to police figures, more than 400 drug suspects have been killed while nearly 600,000 others have surrendered since July 1 following Duterte’s inauguration.

After Duterte gave more than 150 officials suspected of links to illegal drugs 24 hours to surrender, 31 police officers and 27 local officials turned themselves in as of Monday afternoon.