Gambling from Cory to Noynoy By Ricardo Saludo Academics and media cite two pernicious effects of jueteng on crime: it creates syndicates and corrupts law enforcers and political leaders. Once vice is banned, explains professor Alfred McCoy in his book on American colonialism, Capillaries of Empire, “a symbiosis of politicians, police, and vice entrepreneurs can foster powerful syndicates and a high volume of illicit activity.” The American academic best known hereabouts for his writings on the Marcos regime, recounts that faced with coup attempts, “the [Corazon] Aquino administration (1986 –92), desperate for cash to build a private army and a bloc of loyal legislators, forged the first explicit alliance between the national executive and provincial jueteng bosses.” That collusion has continued through succeeding administrations down to her own son’s rule. In July 2010, the first month of the second Aquino administration, anti-gambling crusader Archbishop Oscar Cruz named presidential shooting buddy Interior Undersecretary Rico Puno, who supervised the PNP for Malacañang, as “ultimate recipient” of jueteng payoffs, along with then-PNP Chief Jesus Versoza. Aquino dismissed the accusation without investigation. The President did order Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo, who eradicated the vice in Naga when he was mayor, to crack down on it. But crucially, Aquino kept control of the national police, the main weapon against jueteng, through Puno. And Aquino never followed up the anti-gambling campaign nor mentioned it in his SONAs. Indeed, he was quoted saying that eradicating jueteng was not his priority. ‘Jueteng is stronger now’ Two years later Archbishop Cruz sighed: “Jueteng did not just boom; the operation is much stronger now.” Sandra Cam, a numbers operator-turned-whistleblower, counted four draws a day, instead of the previous two or three. She said the vice had spread to Iloilo and Negros in the region of current Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas, who took over after Robredo’s fatal plane crash in August 2012. In December 2012, Roxas told PNP Chief Purisima to include in the 2013 election security plan “a no-nonsense campaign against jueteng, because many of the jueteng lords have themselves become political warlords who could thwart the people’s true will” in the polls. Roxas also intimated that he would move against jueteng in Pampanga. But like so many past so-called wars on jueteng, nothing much happened. In January 2013, how much the vice corrupted law enforcers became bloodily clear with the ambush of a suspected jueteng lord allegedly staged by police and soldiers at a checkpoint in Atimonan, Quezon. Led by PNP Superintendent Hansel Marantan, the uniformed suspects killed 13 men in two black Montero sport utility vehicles, including reputed gambling kingpin Vic Siman and ranking police officers with him. Cam saw the carnage as a battle over jueteng turf. Investigators said Marantan had reason to kill Siman, whose jueteng rival in Laguna, known as “Ka Tita,” was under the superintendent’s protection. Archbishop Cruz believed the probe had been diverted away from people close to the Palace. Aquino’s top aide, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, head of the hugely funded Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission, admitted providing P100,000 for Marantan’s Atimonan operation. Having decided to keep illegal numbers going and not let its Naga nemesis Robredo wipe it out, Aquino has allowed syndicates of jueteng lords, their political patrons and police protectors flourish nationwide. That cannot but make law enforcers susceptible to allowing or even committing crime for personal gain, like this week’s EDSA abduction by six police—not just illicit gaming, but narcotics, kidnapping, carnapping, robbery, even murdering fellow police officers for jueteng loot.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 22:59:46 +0000