Jueteng operations will not proliferate without powerful coddlers and protectors in the government. Instead of supporting and protecting the Small Town Lottery (STL) of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), these corrupt government officials hideously protect illegal activities.
At present, while there is no Authorized STL Agent (ASA) playing in Albay due to its termination for various violations on the STL implementing rules and regulations (IRR), a notorious jueteng lord is taking advantage of the situation. Some local officials and police officers in the province are reportedly protecting him. Well, payola is the name of the game.
Jueteng is also rampant in Cagayan in Northern Luzon, and again, this illegal numbers game is being operated by the same jueteng lord.
In Camarines Sur, jueteng is rampant while there’s no STL operations for more or less six months now. The same notorious jueteng lord is again the culprit.
While this gambling lord is operating jueteng in some parts of Luzon, he is also taking millions of pesos from the government that is supposed to be collected by STL to help fund PCSO charity programs for poor and indigent people who cannot afford to pay for medicines or hospitalization.
I’m just curious about the case of Camarines Sur. The Court has already junked the writ of injunction filed against Evenchance Gaming Corp., but it can’t resume operations due to the absence of a PCSO Board resolution.
I don’t want to preempt PCSO regarding these things because I believe the Board will do its best to make sure STL will continue to operate in said province. That’s one effective way to stop the proliferation of jueteng.
My point is, if the Court has junked the injunction, Evenchance should now be able to operate. We all know that its operations were terminated allegedly due to violations in the IRR. However, it appears that all the “alleged” evidence against the corporation are fabricated because of politics.
Good thing the one heading the said corporation has already changed his ways and decided to operate the legal STL instead of jueteng.
I won’t stop reminding our countrymen that STL is earning an average of P2 billion a month this year. From January to October, it earned a whopping P21.9 billion from 82 ASAs.
These ASAs might not be getting a lot of recognition for their efforts, but we cannot deny the fact that their revenues come from hard work. More or less 400,000 STL agents are investing blood, sweat and tears going around all corners of their respective areas three times a day just to collect revenues and help fund the government’s health programs.
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