Narcs seeing more families in drug trade

THE TRADE in dangerous drugs is becoming a family business in the Philippines, often involving parent and child or brother and sister, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said Friday.

On that day, PDEA reported the arrest in Maguindanao of related alleged drug pushers, a mother and her son.

Dingala Bandong Salim, 50, and her son, Mike Bandong Sabdulla, 36, were arrested Tuesday after allegedly selling a sachet of shabu, or methamphetamine hydrochloride, to an undercover PDEA agent.

In a statement released by the agency, PDEA Director General Jose S. Gutierrez Jr. said familial teams were becoming more common in the drug trade.

“Besides the shared income, another [reason why] parents and siblings work together in the illegal drug trade is the mutual trust among family members,” Gutierrez said.

“Who else can they trust and rely upon but their own? Nonetheless, this sort of trust is for the wrong reasons,” he said.

Salim and Sabdulla, her son from a previous marriage, were arrested in a joint operation led by agents of the PDEA in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and troops from the 6th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Capiton, Datu Odin Sinsuat town, Maguindanao, early on Tuesday, the PDEA said.

PDEA agents found two more medium-size sachets of shabu and drug paraphernalia on the suspects. They recovered the buy-bust money paid to the suspects, the agency said.

The PDEA said it had received reports that Salim and Sabdulla were responsible for shabu distribution in Cotabato City.

The agency filed drug charges against mother and son in the Maguindanao Provincial Prosecution Office.

Salim and Sabdulla are detained at the PDEA jail on PC Hill, Cotabato City.