Philippine National Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa must either be reckless or naive when he vowed to end illegal gambling in a matter of 15 days. Or else, he said, regional and provincial chiefs will be relieved.
Illegal gambling has been going on in the country for decades. It goes by a different name for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, but it is essentially the same.
In Luzon, jueteng is some form of entertainment. The poor and the jobless get a chance to win a few hundred pesos with a P1 bet. Jueteng is popular in many places that radio stations even broadcast the results two to three times a day.
I don’t know exactly how gambling lords operate, but I have been told that local government officials—governors, vice governors, provincial board members, mayors, vice mayors and council members—partake of the money. Even members of the armed forces assigned to the region also get protection money; the same goes for police directors and chiefs.
Believe it or not, protection money reaches all the way to Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo!
I have been told that even parish priests receive donations.
Eradication of illegal gambling is easier said than done. Perhaps Dela Rosa is too much like his boss, President Duterte, who is given to hyperbole.
Jueteng was brought to the Philippines by the Chinese during the Spanish colonial days.
Dela Rosa may relieve all the police directors, but I will bet my last peso that he would not be able to root out gambling. It is so deeply rooted in our culture.
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One does not need to be a rocket scientist to unravel the mystery involving the entry of shabu through the green/ express lane of the Bureau of Customs.
The fact that Customs got a tip from Xiamen Customs about the shipment of shabu two days after the smuggling tells us that syndicates from China are also involved. Would you believe that Xiamen Customs wanted Philippine Customs to protect its contact, Richard Tan, of the Valenzuela warehouse where the billions of pesos worth of shabu was found?
Miracles do happen at Customs. Recall that a shipment of contraband and highly dutiable goods disappeared on the way to the Port of Batangas, never to be found again.
I covered Customs many years ago and I know for a fact that it is the system itself that makes smuggling possible. Take the case of imports withheld at a Customs area beside the Pasig River. It is so easy for the goods to disappear.
I myself have been a victim of corrupt Customs brokers. My wife and I brought back furniture from Los Angeles when my daughter decided to come home. My gulay, I had to pay extra to facilitate the release of the furniture!
There was a time when the Customs Commissioner had all the desk drawers of Customs employees removed. It was the habit of people to keep their bribes in their closet.
Even the late President Ramon Magsaysay’s move to place young and idealistic Philippine Military Academy cadets at Customs backfired. The cadets ended up being corrupted by the system.
The solution is thinking out of the box. Other countries have privatized their Customs functions. That’s worth looking into.
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I agree with Senator Panfilo Lacson, former PNP chief, who is cool to a congressional investigation into the killing of Ozamis City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog and 14 others. They supposedly resisted arrest when they were served warrants during a raid early Sunday morning.
Parojinog was a suspected drug lord, among the narco-politicians earlier identified by President Rodrigo Duterte.
Reaction to this killing is mixed. Some say it is about time that justice catch up with the Parojinog family. They must be jailed, it is said, for their activities in drugs, carnapping and other crimes. The only reason they have not been jailed is that they share their loot with the people of Ozamis City. This is also why they are elected into office.
A congressional probe would be useless, a waste of time and resources.
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Republic Act 10361, otherwise known as the Domestic Workers Act is just about the most useless law passed by Congress.
I don’t know what percentage of the population observes this law. More importantly, kasambahay themselves would rather get employed on an ad hoc basis rather than follow the law.
I know family and friends who have no contract with their household helper. The helpers would rather work on a casual basis.
In many instances, contracts frighten helpers because employers would expect them to work for a certain period of time.