MANILA, Philippines - (Editor'snote: A young prosecutor in New York was elected governor three times and almost became president for his successful prosecution of the Mafia as noted by the author.) Jueteng, added to hostage-taking, has exhausted and exasperated at least the following agencies:
1) DoJ as the government's prosecution arm dependent on hundreds of prosecutors from Batanes islands to Sulu Archipelago, 2) DILG, 3) PNP, 4) LGU officials linked to jueteng, 6) Senate/House probers, and 7) many more, including religious leaders facing persona-non-grata citation. Subject to review The hostage-taking incident on August 23 has been thoroughly investigated but subject to review by the Palace legal staff that called the report "recommendatory lang." The probers cannot invite the Palace boys/girls who may want to get even a thin "slice of the pie." Two topics on prime time One extremely annoyed café critic has expressed sarcasm, not praise, of the two subjects of an open probe.
His comment: Primetime TV news anchors may not know it - that one and one-half hour is devoted to news items on two topics only and the quick commercials sharing 50-50 and nothing more worth the kuryente. Unsubstantiated In New York, with top RP businessmen, Tonyboy Cojuangco called the statements on jueteng "unsubstantiated and not worth" the full and prior attention of most of us, that he met Bishop Cruz and asked him to present solid evidence of his charges, most of us remember as a yearly game in the Senate. What's decorum Was the bishop's public and open reference to Cojuango's reported girl friend a proper part of decorum?Most of us take this as a major casus belli verging on malice. TV viewers last Friday watched Tonyboy explaining what is a substantiated and proper charge.
Gabby Lopez put his arm on Tonyboy's shoulder without saying a word, after presenting his side with caution. Some fairy tales Ten unsubstantiated charges plus 12 of the same tales may result in 22 fairy tales. Year after year in the last five years, the same faces and charges have reached the attention of the Senate, House, Palace, DoJ, and the courts. If the expected recommendations on the subject were ever written, submitted, and proper sanctions imposed, not one of the 94 M of us could readily affirm. But most of us are not prepared to say the charges openly presented in the Senate were completely untrue. The long test The acid test is: Who, among the hundreds of prosecutors and thousands of members of the PNP vice squads nationwide would dare or bother to file the proper charges against the leading personalities involved in illegal gambling? It's giving the whole nation the impression that all the law enforcers combined, the Palace, Congress, and the courts lack the power and courage to defeat the shadowy gambling lords, their protectors, promoters and financiers. We are not fighting the New York and Chicago branches of the US Mafia, but promdi jueteng promoters fully known to the country, including their protectors who live in style as governors, etc. Young prosecutor In New York in the 1930s, the Mafia criminal syndicate known as Murder, Inc., seemed unbeatable. Democratic Gov. Herbert H. Lehman appointed a young special prosecutor to root out racketeering. Thomas Edmund Dewey, all of 33 and concededly Republican, won national fame for his successful prosecution of mafiosos and their capos led by Charles "Lucky" Luciano (Salvatore Luciana), called "chairman of the board". Luciano ran a $12-million-a-year prostitution ring and monopolized the business in New York, employing 2,000 women in a total of 200 "houses."
He lived in luxury at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (where Noynoy and Hillary Clinton signed the $434-M grant to RP last Friday). He dipped into the narcotics racket and loan sharking. 120 witnesses Dewey's team paraded before the jury 120 women, former "employees," who testified against Luciano, forcing the state to pay them $36,000 for their helpful deposition. Eight co-defendants were sentenced to 25 years in prison and Luciano was meted out a life term. Reward Prosecutor Tom Dewey was elected NY governor in 1942, 1946, and 1950. He won the Republican nomination for president in 1944 but was defeated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1948 he was again his party's standard-bearer, but the wide lead given him by opinion polls led to fatal self-confidence and defeat by President Harry S. Truman.
(Comments are welcome at roming@pefianco.com).
