PNP chiefs to be relieved
BAGUIO CITY – Illegal gambling activities like jueteng are still rampant
in this summer capital and other northern Luzon provinces like Benguet in
Cordillera, sources said, despite an order by Philippine National Police chief Ronald
“Bato” De La Rosa to police directors to stop illegal gambling operations
nationwide in 15 days or he will relieve regional, provincial and town and city
police chiefs.
In this city, sources said jueteng kubradors still
collect bets illegally but now wear ID cards purportedly showing they are STL
employees.
With lots of legal and illegal gambling activities in
this so-called “character city,” residents who openly raised their objection to
any form of gambling in Baguio are eyeing a people’s initiative to stop these.
Father Manny Flores, chairman of the Diocese of Baguio
and Benguet Social Action Center, in an interview said religious groups and
civil society who attended the recent public consultation conducted by the City
Council Committee of the Whole aired support for a people’s initiative to come
up with a resolution or an ordinance that will make the city residents’ stand
of “no to gambling” be made permanent and lasting.
“We will resort to this if our representatives do
not see us and do not listen to us,” he said.
He, however, expressed confidence that the city council
will listen to the people’s voice on their call for the local legislators to
rescind two resolutions “interposing no objection to the request” of Bingo
Palace Corporation, Highland Gaming Corporation and RCC Global Entertainment to
maintain and operate traditional bingo and e-bingo in a hotel and in two
private shopping malls and a government-owned shopping center here.
Former city councilor Lourdes Tabanda, a lawyer,
said under Section 120, Chapter 2 of the Local Government Code, the people's
initiative is prepared by residents and will need not less than 1,000
signatures of registered voters to be approved.
The Social Action Center together with different
groups in the city has sought the representation of Councilor Maria Mylen
Yaranon, a known advocate of "no to gambling", to file the resolution
on May 29 calling for the rescission of the three resolutions approved on May
22, 2017 and December 12, 2016.
Yaranon said “we need to convince them to be on our side,
to rescind. I support the people's initiative. Hindi naman natatapos and laban
(the fight does not end) if it’s for the good of the people. Let's fight
whatever is ailing our society.”
She added that there is a public clamor against
gambling and she will support that. “We will not stop this fight,” she said.
Aurora Suclad, president of the Baguio-Benguet Ecumenical
Group, in a separate interview said that in 2015, they brought to the city
council physical evidence of 125,000 signatures of different sectors in the
city that they gathered interposing objection to the conduct of gambling
activities in Baguio. The compilation of signatures is still safely kept by the
Diocese.
She said, “whoever sits in the city council, if
they have a sense of history, they should already have a feel of the will of
the people of Baguio and they should listen to that".
She said the battle to stop any form of gambling is a
continuing stand of many of the residents of the city. “We have been waging
this battle for years, even the anti casino before. The signature campaign was
initiated to go against all these forms of gambling in the city.”
For years, Baguio residents have maintained their
stand against any form of gambling. Attempts were done to evade it but with the
strong opposing stand of residents, operation of casinos was opposed.
A casino operated at Pines Hotel in the 1980s but
stopped when the hotel was burned and at the Hyatt Hotel here but it, too
stopped when the building was toppled during the 1990 earthquake. – With a report from Liza T. Agoot
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