Teacher, 2 others busted in Cotabato City drug den raid

March 9, 2024 | 5:38pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Anti-narcotics agents and officials of the Bangsamoro government arrested a drug den operator who is a teacher and his two accomplices in a joint operation inside the 32-hectare regional capitol here on Saturday afternoon.

The 63-year-old drug den operator Wajid Ibrahim Galib, who is a teacher and a known member of the LGBTQ community, and his two cohorts, John Lloyd Fernandez Compaña, 23, and the 25-year-old Ridzwan Ismael Abdulgani, are now in the custody of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Compaña had been jailed twice for narcotics offenses and still has a standing case for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 in a local court. Their neighbors had told reporters who witnessed the anti-narcotics operation that Compaña and Abdulgani are both “boyfriends” of Galib.

The operation that resulted in their detention was supposedly only meant to serve Compaña a warrant of arrest from the Regional Trial Court Branch 13. The Anti-narcotics operatives who arrested Compaña found 11 sachets of shabu and drug sniffing paraphernalia in their hideout.

Barangay officials said Galib, Compaña and Abdulgani had indeed used their lair as a drug den and a distribution point for shabu. 

Their drug den inside the Bangsamoro capitol, close to an old historic mosque, was discovered together by PDEA-BARMM agents and members of the Bangsamoro Anti-Illegal Drugs Task Force, or BAIDTF, which is composed of different regional ministries under the office of the region’s chief minister, Ahod Balawag Ebrahim.

The warrant for the arrest of Compaña was served to him by representatives of the BAIDTF and agents of PDEA-BARMM, led by its regional director, Gil Cesario Castro.

The operation was assisted by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation, personnel of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and a police mobile company under BARMM’s regional police director, Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza.