Skipping a thorny issue

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

BAGUIO CITY -- With 97 hopefuls who filed their certificates of candidacy and to be president three months from now, the number was trimmed to only 10, nine for vice president, 64 for senator and 177 party-list groups.
    The final list of aspirants that made it to the ballot of the Commission on Elections are Ernie Abella, Leody De Guzman, Isko Moreno Domagoso, Norberto Gonzales, Ping Lacson, Faisal Mangondato, Bongbong Marcos, Jose Montemayor Jr., Manny Pacquiao and Leni Robredo.
    If you noticed, all of these bets’ campaign posters and statements attempt to win over voters to their side. Some are truthful and quite convincing, while other approaches are entertaining and catch people’s attentions.
    And while there are posters that express mother statements about fighting graft and corruption; others promise housing, jobs and salary increases which have become overused and unfulfilled pledges in every election season.
    In a TV exposure, a candidate for a national post expressed about applying on a wider scale what he has done as city executive, forgetting that his sitting president failed to do just that in his fight against illegal drugs.
    But there is one important topic that most presidential and senatorial aspirants are avoiding – illegal gambling. It is one issue that has corrupted the police chain of command, the elected local and national officials, including those in the barangays.
    Remember the shooting incident at a joint police and military checkpoint along Maharlika Highway in Barangay Lumutan, Atimonan, Quezon Province where 13 were killed. Eleven of the suspects were killed on the spot, while two others died in a hospital.
    The gunfight occurred after suspicious men on board two sports utility vehicles refused to be subjected to inspection and opened fire at the joint police and military checkpoint. The 2013 gunfight is still fresh in the memory of investigators.
    Local folks in the area believe that the shooting incident was due to jueteng kickbacks and may have been a turf war over the illegal numbers game, while relatives of the slain suspects believe that the incident was a rubout.
    At least three policemen and a soldier from Mimaropa region (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, and Palawan) were also killed in the firefight.
    The legitimacy of the checkpoint operation raised further doubts after reports claimed that some P100 million allegedly carried by the slain men went missing.
    Slowly, reports about the incident were updated and that the encounter between security forces and an alleged jueteng operator in Quezon province was an ambush and not a shoot-out as earlier claimed by the police.
    Most regions in the country, especially the Bicol and Southern Tagalog areas, are crawling with gambling lords but most presidentiables and their followers, except for one or two, are not talking about it.
    Borrowing the words of one national bet, jueteng has become a normal market scene and police do not care to make arrests of those involved because that form of gambling has become the front for small town lottery.
    Jueteng merely masquerades as a legitimate STL three times a day for seven days a week, whose kubradors (bet collectors) are armed with PCSO IDs to avoid arrest.
    Law enforcers are duty-bound to enforce Republic Act 9287 which outlaws such illegal activities, including jueteng. A presidential bet who was once the police director general stressed that illegal gambling breeds corruption among law enforcers and public officials.
    By the way, in the Q&A portion during a visit of a DILG national official in Benguet sometime in 2011, the latter was asked how jueteng could be stopped. The audience were expecting him to say he will order his policemen to arrest operators but instead his answer was for bettors to stop placing bets.  
    The senate then spearheaded a congressional probe into the proliferation of jueteng where it was reported that regular collections from the illegal numbers game in Metro Manila, the Cordillera and regions 1 to 5 (Ilocos, Cagayan, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Bicol) alone reached P200 million daily.
    Illegal gambling and jueteng became rampant after Edsa One during the time of Tita Cory. It was never stopped during the administrations that followed. It has even become more widespread during the term of PNoy Aquino when jueteng operators used STL franchises issued by the PCSO as fronts for illegal gambling operations.
    The presidential hopefuls know that illegal gambling breeds corruption in all corners of the government they wish to lead. It can even kill as the recent disappearance of 30 cockfighting aficionados, but only one or two national candidates talked about stopping it.