Mayor on jueteng: Shoot me if they can prove it

MALASIQUI, Pangasinan — "Shoot me if they can prove there’s jueteng in my town."

Thus reacted this town’s mayor, Alfonso Soriano, to a recent survey by the Lingayen-Dagupan Archdiocese that the illegal numbers game is allegedly "rampant" in his turf, particularly in his home-barangay of Canan.

Told about Soriano’s dare, Archbishop Oscar Cruz, said, "Tell the mayor that allowing himself to be shot is bad."

"I’m willing to die for my honor and integrity," Soriano told The STAR.

Saying he was "deeply wounded" by the survey results, Soriano said he is "willing to put my neck on the chopping board" if jueteng is found to really exist in his town.

But he hurled a counter-challenge: "If the source of the information that there’s jueteng in our town could not prove that there is, we will hang him in the plaza."

Besides Malasiqui, the survey, conducted from July 1 to 16, also claimed that jueteng is also "rampant" in Mangaldan, where Chief Superintendent Arturo Lomibao, the regional police director, incidentally, hails from.

The survey added that the illegal numbers game is allegedly "moderate" in Dagupan City, particularly in Barangay Bonuan Boquig, some villages in Binmaley, Bautista, Calasiao, San Fabian, San Jacinto and Lingayen.

Soriano said the survey results were unfair to him and his town’s police chief who, he lamented, might be removed from his post because of the negative information.

The mayor, however, admitted that jueteng used to exist in his town, as in other municipalities, until Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina waged a no-nonsense campaign against illegal gambling.

For his part, Superintendent Bernard Reamon, Mangaldan’s police chief, questioned the parameters the archdiocese had used in conducting the survey, its fifth so far.

Reamon said that during the survey period, jueteng totally ceased in Mangaldan. "I should know better because I know what’s happening on the ground," he said.

But he said, "It is a challenge for us to work better but I can assure you that even the ‘guerrilla-type’ (jueteng operations are) not existing here."

Informed about the reactions to the survey, Archbishop Cruz said, "I have emphasized that our survey results are open for validation by all those concerned, especially by public authorities."

He added: "It is not infallible. But what can we do, that’s the outcome. They can ask for an independent group to validate it."

Cruz said lay leaders surveyed as many people as they could on whether jueteng was "rampant, moderate, negligible or none at all" in their respective towns, and the results were tallied.

He added that those who made the survey have some jueteng paraphernalia in their possession.

To officials who have belied the survey results, Cruz had these words: "Baka meron din silang di nalalaman (Perhaps, they are also not aware of some things)."