JUETENG OLD STORY AND MALACANANG AS TOP PROTECTOR OF THE ILLEGAL NUMBERS GAME'S UGLY HEAD?

Tree-lined path to the legendary Paoay Lake in Ilocos Norte

Filipino politicos--it is said that some of them, especially those in the provinces, benefit from jueteng.

     Is the half-Ilokano Sen. Aquilino " Coco" Pimentel, Jr. serious in the jueteng probe? Are the senators joking? Can they dislodge Malacanang from its entrenched position as the number one protector of the illegal numbers' game? (When assigned for many years in La Union, the blogger asked the incumbent PNP provincial commander, a certain Diciano who has since become a police general, why they could not eradicate jueteng, he answered matter-of-factly, "Go and ask Malacanang".)
    Anyway, here's the blogger's report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Monday, February 2, 1998) after jueteng was stopped for three days in La Union.

     San Fernando, La Union--"Tuloy and ligaya (Let the celebration continue.)"
          This one-liner, part of a longer article which appeared in a weekly tabloid here, is not about an   interrupted celebration, but about jueteng which mysteriously stopped two days before and during President Ramos' visit here last week.
     Reports said jueteng resurfaced immediately after the President and the Cabinet members left this capital town after a regional meeting.
     Jueteng bettors and collectors even assailed Mr. Ramos and the Cabinet secretaries for holding the meeting here because they lost income during the three-day lull, according to a writer of the weekly tabloid Banat.
     Eddy Almadovar, Banat publisher-editor and a councilor in Bacnotan town, said when he delivered a privileged speech attacking the continued operation of jueteng in the town,  nobody among his colleagues was seriously listening.
     He claimed that he even got the ire of a top local official for his stance against jueteng.
     Reports here said jueteng resurfaced in La Union in December last year after almost a year of absence.
     Police and local officials in the province had signed a covenant in 1996 to stop jueteng operations in the province and in the Ilocos region but underground jueteng operations continued.

View from a beach resort in Bauang, La Union

     Bets, reports said, are openly collected even in government offices, schools, local police stations and even beach resorts frequented by tourists.