Bato’s eyes focused on gambling lords

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March Fianza

I remember saying after the filing of certificates of candidacies last year that while there are narco-politicians around us, there are other sources of campaign money for the May 2016 elections such as illegal gambling and jueteng.

That has been proven to be true in Baguio. Ask any common visitor of an underground mini casino near a music bar named after a place in Texas. Ask also any regular customer of another music bar near a busy flyover.

If for years these dimly lit gambling niches were permitted to operate with reassurance, it was because the policemen who were only a stone’s throw away were rewarded more than punished for pretending to know nothing about illegal gambling operations within their jurisdiction.

Gambling has many faces just like the gamblers who enjoy it. I do not gamble but like the rest of us, I can distinguish an occasional and friendly game of poker, mahjong, tong-its and pusoy from a 24/7 monte and card games frequented by suspicious-looking men, some of whom are in short pants and Japanese slippers.

In the friendly card game, the players are dressed decently, know each other well and no percentage shares from the winnings go to a single person. In the 24/7 gambling, the players have questionable personality who will never reveal what business they are in, and the banker-operator of the house wins the rounds most of the time.

And since they do not button their shirts and appear to be police characters, they can easily be suspected as drug dealers, vegetable truck helpers, alternate taxi drivers, hold uppers, snatchers, bukas-kotse, akyat-bahay, or plain istambay who has made gambling his source of income. In this house, gambling lords and drug lords are cousins.  

I am also reminded that in April of 2011, 50 year-old SPO2 Chito Bueno who was then assigned at Police Station 7 was shot inside the gambling den along Legarda Rd. In the investigation that followed, the paraffin test on Bueno showed a negative result, meaning he did not fire a gun.

One of the players in the room who was known as a certain “Miller” tested positive in the paraffin tests that were conducted immediately after the shooting incident. He, with seven others were in one of the gambling tables in the room at the time of the incident.

Bueno’s friends who was with him on the day before he was shot disclosed that he told them that he received a call through his cell phone that instructed him to proceed to the Legarda gambling den where his body was found.

Bueno was alive when he was brought to the hospital so that his children were able to extract important information from him. But for reasons known only to the police investigators and the gambling operators, the investigation into his death stopped.

It is open secret that gambling in the city has been operating with reassurance since the police have not been exerting enough effort to stop it. Why? Because they receive instructions from their bosses not to raid the houses because the operators are in cahoots with politicians.

Police Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa who was in Camp Dangwa last week as part of his tour around police headquarters in the country to encourage his men to work hard in their war on illegal drugs said that illegal gambling would be the next target.

The PNP chief seems to know what he was saying as he warned police officers to “stay away from illegal gambling lords”. He said, the act by gambling lords to “offer millions to PNP chiefs has become institutionalized”.

In his Camp Dangwa visit, Dela Rosa called on all police personnel of the Cordillera not to collect “payolas” from gambling groups as doing so is the same as supporting the operations of illegal drugs nationwide. I wonder if they will heed his order.

Dela Rosa said, illegal gambling personalities offered gambling money after his assumption but he refused, knowing that the payola problem will only be tougher to resolve if uniformed men are protecting them.

I wonder too if Bato’s message stuck in the minds of the political leaders who attended the PNP chief’s first visit to Camp Dangwa. Dela Rosa’s statements against illegal gambling was not timely as it was long overdue for a PNP Chief to make such statements to his men.

Illegal gambling operations in collaboration with politicians should stop. The probe into the shooting of a cop inside a gambling den along Legarda should be reopened. Let us just hope the witnesses are still alive. By now, the operators of gambling houses in the city who have been in cahoots with officials that we know of, may be looking for ways to launder their money.

For the longest time, elected officials in close coordination with the police have been denying the presence of gambling dens and operation of jueteng in the city. For the longest time, they have been using illegal gambling money to fund their election campaigns.

People enjoy gambling, the adrenaline rush and the winning. But the effect is financial drain as gamblers sometimes do not know when to stop. The effect can also be disastrous as gamblers often reach the point where they chase their “last win” in an effort to win back their original bet. Most of the time, they lose.