Jueteng revival in Isabela, Quirino angers local execs

TUGUEGARAO City, Cagayan — Irked by reports that jueteng resurfaced in parts of Isabela, particularly Santiago City and Ramon and Roxas towns, and Quirino province after Christmas, Chief Superintendent Alfredo de Vera, Cagayan Valley police director, ordered his men to crack down anew on the illegal numbers game and arrest a Pangasinan-based operator.

De Vera issued the order last Friday after officials of Santiago City and Ramon complained about the resurgence of jueteng in their localities.

Jueteng operators hibernated for a few months following strict orders from Interior and Local Government Secretary Angelo Reyes and Philippine National Police chief Director General Ed Aglipay for an intensified crackdown on illegal gambling in the province.

Aglipay did so after he received a confidential report from the Church-based Isabela Anti-Jueteng Watch that a high-ranking intelligence officer was reportedly coddling a jueteng financier operating in Santiago City and Ramon and Roxas towns as well as in Quirino.

Aglipay warned regional police officials that he would relieve them from their posts if the report turned out to be true.

Santiago City officials have criticized Superintendent Reynaldo Sinaon, the city’s police chief, for his alleged laxity in enforcing the anti-gambling law. They noted that other forms of illegal gambling have mushroomed in the city proper.

Senior Superintendent Napoleon Estilles, Isabela police director, meanwhile, has threatened to relieve the police chief of Ramon town if he fails to immediately act on the complaint of Mayor Reymund Espidol about the revival of jueteng in his municipality.

In a statement, Espidol scored those behind the jueteng’s return in his town which had, in recent months, been a jueteng-free municipality.

De Vera, a Pangasinense, reportedly ordered Sinaon and Estilles to track down a jueteng financier who hails from San Fabian, Pangasinan.

Police intelligence sources said the jueteng lord, who is bankrolling the illegal numbers game in Santiago City and Ramon and Roxas towns, has been boasting of being De Vera’s townmate.  

Roxas Mayor Benedict Calderon also decried the resurgence of jueteng in his town, saying he might resort to legal means to prevent illegal gambling from proliferating in his locality.

Estilles, a lawyer himself, volunteered to prosecute the Pangasinan jueteng lord if only to give a lesson to other gambling operators.

"It is time to give a lesson to these people who think they are beyond the reach of the law," said Estilles, who used to be the regional police intelligence and investigation chief.