BAGUIO CITY — Regional police destroyed an estimated P228 million worth of marijuana plants during a massive two-day eradication operation on Mount Chumanchil that concluded Monday.
Joint law enforcement teams discovered 10 plantation sites covering 9.5 hectares in Barangay Loccong, a remote area in the Cordillera mountains.
Officers uprooted and burned 1,140,000 fully grown marijuana plants, marking the largest single-operation drug eradication by the regional police force within a 48-hour period.
The tactical sweep, dubbed Oplan Revisit Everest, involved a large-scale mobilization of regional personnel.
The units included provincial drug enforcement and intelligence teams from Kalinga and Mountain Province, multiple municipal police stations, mobile force companies, the Regional Mobile Force Battalion 15, and specialized medical and intelligence teams.
Following the destruction of the crop, the officers held a flag-raising ceremony on the mountain peak and planted tree seedlings across the cleared land.
Police officials said the flag-raising was intended to assert government authority over the remote territory, while the tree planting was initiated to jumpstart environmental restoration on the scarred hillsides.
The regional headquarters emphasized that the operation aimed to permanently reclaim the area from illegal drug syndicates to protect local communities.
Investigators are conducting follow-up inquiries to identify and apprehend the cultivators and financiers responsible for the plantations.
