A few months after his appointment by President Duterte, Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) General Manager Alexander “Mandirigma” Balutan said that illegal gambling, apart from drugs and kidnapping, is the source of campaign funds of corrupt politicians who want to secure a seat in the government.
The message is clear. There won’t be clean and honest elections if we won’t stop illegal activities that fuel corruption and dirty politics in our country.
It is crystal-clear why the Philippine National Police (PNP) is ignoring the call to clean up our country from jueteng, masiao, swertres, pares, and other illegal games.
Some police officers are disregarding Executive Order (EO) 13 of the President.
An example of their obvious disregard of EO 13 was the resurgence of peryahan ng bayan operations of Globaltech that uses the name and logo of PCSO.
In 2016 the PCSO has terminated the deed of authority of Globaltech to play peryahan, as it failed to remit an alleged amount of P100 million.
But, instead of helping the PCSO thwart illegal gambling, the concerned PNP in the area remained silent and did nothing to stop this illegal activity. Instead of the police, the National Bureau of Investigation provided support to PCSO officials who raided and padlocked Globaltech’s peryahan in Albay and in other parts of the country.
We don’t have to tell the PNP that peryahan is illegal because that would sound silly. This is a slap on the face of the PNP, which is like telling them they don’t know their duty to stop illegal gambling.
Apart from EO 13, there’s a memorandum of agreement between the PCSO and the PNP that the latter shall be the primary law-enforcement agency of the government to eradicate illegal gambling in the country.
Balutan is correct in saying the PNP’s action is “anemic” when it comes to jueteng, masiao, suertres, pares, including peryahan. But certain quarters are vocal: Who can say no to payola?
On top of that, there’s Republic Act 9287 (An Act Increasing the Penalties of Illegal Numbers Games, Amending Certain Provisions of Presidential Decree 1962, And for Other Purposes).
The law aims to impose heavy penalty or punishment to government officials—elected or appointed —and employees who will be proven corrupt, with up to 20 years of imprisonment, and providing bail amounting to P3,000 up to millions.
Apart from that, they will be perpetually disqualified from holding any government position.
To quote from the law: “In case of failure to apprehend perpetrators of illegal-numbers game of any law enforcer, he will suffer administrative penalty of suspension or dismissal, as the case maybe, to be imposed by the appropriate authority.”
Don’t tell us this doesn’t matter to the concerned authorities.