‘Ngongo’ to resume jueteng draws?

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — Suspected jueteng financier Melchor Caluag alias "Ngongo" has reportedly finalized plans to resume his illegal numbers game operations after surviving an assassination attempt last Sept. 20.

Caluag has reportedly asked his associates, identified as Marga, Benjie and Rey based in Angeles City and the City of San Fernando to resume the gambling operations that were stopped by the police four days ago.

The police regional office claimed that Central Luzon is now virtually jueteng-free.

A jueteng kingpin in Bulacan, popularly known as "Bisyo" has reportedly expanded his operations to Arayat and other eastern towns in Pampanga.

A certain "Paris" and one "Otto," well-known jueteng operators in Angeles City and Apalit, Pampanga, respectively, continue their illegal activities with impunity, according to some police officers and civic leaders.

Meanwhile, a vital witness in the Caluag slay try earlier reported missing and feared killed was found alive the other night.

Sr. Supt. Rodolfo Mendoza, Pampanga police director, said that the witness, a certain Joseph Canlas, 45, was found in a rest house in a remote village in nearby Mexico town.

Police investigators believed that Canlas could identify or at least describe the suspects since he saw them leave on their get-away jeep.

The jeep was later found abandoned in front of a vulcanizing shop near the Robinson Starmills shopping mall here.

However, Canlas declined to give police investigators any information on the suspects, according to Mendoza.

Police also said that other witnesses in the shooting refused to give their own statements "for fear of their lives."