A day before retired Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz dropped his bombshell at a Senate inquiry, jueteng operations had apparently stopped all of a sudden in the Ilocos Region, according to the regional police.
The Ilocos Regional Police Office at Camp Gen. Florendo in San Fernando, La Union, said that it has not received any reports of jueteng operations in any of the region's four provinces on Monday and Tuesday.
Just last week, or from September 11 to 17, six jueteng operations were reported to police, according to a separate report from the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters at Camp Crame in Manila.
For the first seven months of 2010, according to police regions, Ilocos region registered a total of 42 reports on jueteng operations.
Appearing before a Senate hearing on Tuesday, the retired prelate identified several government officials allegedly receiving payola, or payoff money, from the illegal numbers game.
The list of alleged payola beneficiaries included ranking national officials like Interior Undersecretary Rico Puno and former PNP chief and recently retired Director General Jesus Verzosa. The two have denied the accusations.
Among the Ilocos region’s provinces where jueteng operations were being conducted, Cruz specifically mentioned Pangasinan, with Gov. Amado Espino Jr. allegedly acting as the "jueteng lord."
According to the former archbishop, other provinces where jueteng operations are widespread are Pampanga, Isabela, Laguna, and Cagayan; as well as the cities of Baguio in Benguet and Bacolod in Negros Occidental.
In Metro Manila, jueteng operations are also reportedly conducted in Pasay, Parañaque, and Muntinlupa.
Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo lauded the PNP leadership, particularly its new chief Director General Raul Bacalzo, for the latest development in the government's anti-jueteng drive.
"This development just shows that we can stop jueteng if we want to," Robredo said in a statetment.
On September 15, Robredo reminded Bacalzo to create a "special project group that will review and audit the operations of the [PNP] as safeguard against jueteng, illegal gambling, illegal drugs and other forms of syndicates and organized crimes."
In response, Bacalzo issued a memorandum reiterating the "one-strike policy" of the PNP that was implemented during the term of former PNP chief Panfilo Lacson.
The policy calls for the relief of the local police chief once it is proven by a non-organic police team that illegal gambling operations are persisting in his or her area of command.—Mark D. Merueñas/JV
