All of a sudden, our cops are arresting jueteng ‘small fry’

In a flurry of activity, our policemen are suddenly discovering a number of jueteng smalltime operators. As everybody expected, they’re only picking up small fry – here and there. It’s a barometer of the skepticism with which the public views the current anti-jueteng drive that nobody’s even bothering to laugh at it.

Why is it that a century-old racket has suddenly been declared extinct in Luzon? Even the Cordilleras region is now being touted as "jueteng-free" – with 33 municipalities being announced as clear of the illegal gambling racket. True enough, it’s perfectly within the power of the syndicate bosses, the Jueteng Dons we call them, to "suspend" operations for a week or two, or more, in order to create the impression that jueteng is dead. No way. This racket, which used to be small potatoes – a mere cottage industry – half a century ago, has ballooned into such a lucrative business that it’s reportedly run like a conglomerate of crime with so many on its payola that the Godfathers can call the shots in their bailiwicks.

Only a President and Commander-in-Chief can mobilize the resources and manpower needed to defeat the Jueteng Dons – but will President GMA do it? Of course, La Presidenta won’t have to do it if the public can be convinced that jueteng is dead and gone, but who believes that wild yarn now being peddled by the Philippine National Police? Not even the signature of the local parish priest on the "jueteng-free" certificate seems to be a credible nihil obstat nowadays.

If somebody told you, "The Devil is dead," would you believe him? The same is true of jueteng. The racket is just too successful and money-making to have been scrapped – just like that. If anything, the jueteng gang is lying low, waiting for the storm to pass. And it will pass, if the failure of past, equally ballyhooed campaigns, is any indication. Only courage and political will can defeat jueteng, and thus far we haven’t seen any sign of either.

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Two Senate Committees, namely the Games and Amusement and Public Order committees, chaired respectively by Senators Lito Lapid (a former Pampanga governor himself) and Manuel Villar, are set to start an inquiry on jueteng this afternoon.

Senator Lapid refused to inhibit himself from the inquiry, declaring he should not be deprived of his duty to "work" as chairman of his committee on Games and Amusement. Those who cover the Senate beat can testify that Lapid’s suddenly resurgent "work ethic" is not consistent with his attendance record. The Senator from Pampanga attended only 10 hearings out of the 100 Senate hearings from July to December last year. He didn’t even bother to send representatives from his office except on two occasions.

If you’ll recall, Lapid originally said he wasn’t interested in running for the Senate but was only forced to do so by President GMA. There are those who suspect that he might have been instructed by Malacañang to hold on to the chairmanship of the coming hearings because another committee, like the Committee on Local Government chaired by the two-fisted, no-nonsense former NBI Director and DILG Secretary, Senator Alfredo Lim, might jump in to lead the inquiry. And, as everybody knows, Fred Lim might not be "manageable."

Another speculation among his kabalens (province-mates) is that Senator Lapid had to insist on actively chairing the proceedings because he did not want to be criticized as walang utang na loob (being an ingrate) by those who "helped" make his son, Mark Lapid, governor of Pampanga in the last election.

If Lapid doesn’t cooperate, would he be excommunicated by the "Pope" of jueteng in his home province, which has been called "The Vatican of jueteng"? As they say in Kapampangan, "ken leon, ken tigre . . ."

Retired Supreme Court Justice Isagani Cruz, in a column he writes for the "Inquirer", questions not only Lapid’s lack of delicadeza, but also "his ability to preside at a Senate investigation considering his limited intellectual credentials."

I don’t know about the latter. Senator Lapid must be smarter than the former Justice thinks – otherwise, why could he have earned so much he managed to build that fantastic mansion at which everybody "oohs" and "aahs"? From the gravel business?

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The Jemaah Islamiyah bombers are still at work, this time exploding their bombs in Indonesia, the homeland of their fanatical movement. The Indonesian police are attributing the two bombs which exploded last Saturday in a busy market in the island of Sulawesi (Celebes), killing 20 and injuring 40 others, to the JI militants.

If you look at the map, the Sulawesi group of islands in central Indonesia is nearest the Philippines. The blasts occurred in the main island’s Christian-dominated town of Tentana. This is significant. Although Indonesia’s 220 million population is 90 percent Muslim, central Sulawesi has approximately equal Muslim-Christian populations.

According to wire dispatches, two bombs were detonated. The first was a small explosion, followed 15 minutes later by a much bigger one which flattened the morning market – located, by the way, near a police station. Police later found an unexploded bomb outside a neighboring Christian church. (A clergyman and a three-year old boy were among the dead).

The Islamic militants have been actively zeroing in, the past few years, on Christian targets. Last January, police discovered 60 homemade bombs in an abandoned house in the same district, Poso. Attackers would fire randomly into houses in the Poso region in attempts to kill Christians. In one attack last year, a Hindu woman and two Christian men were wounded. The same day, in a rural suburb of the provincial capital, Palu, two Christians were slain in a kris (machete) attack.

Last May, the reports underscored, a Christian prosecutor who handled "terrorism" cases was murdered in Palu.

In short, the jihad goes on unabated.

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It seems Saturday’s bomb attack took place two days after warnings were issued which prompted the US to close down its embassy and other diplomatic offices in Indonesia until further notice.

The police said they have intelligence information suggesting that the Malaysian bomb-makers and terrorism suspects linked to last year’s Sept. 9th bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta (in which 10 died, all of them Indonesian, and a hundred were injured) might be planning more attacks. These are Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top, who’re still at large.

I was in Jakarta on the day of the bombing to meet then Presidential candidate, former Minister and retired General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, alias S.B.Y. The carnage in front of the Australian Embassy’s bomb-twisted gate (with the glass fronts of surrounding buildings also badly shattered, their facades pockmarked) was unbelievable. Despite the outrage, however, after he had visited the scene and commiserated with the wounded in a nearby hospital, S.B.Y. calmly went on to hold his birthday party in the old Jakarta Hilton.

I remember him even sitting, smilingly, to pose for artists who were competing in a contest to do a cartoon-sketch of him. This attitude of unruffled calm and self-confidence, despite the day’s tragedy, served General Bambang well. Longing for a strong leader, the Indonesian electorate went for S.B.Y. and tossed out the perceptibly weak-willed woman President, Megawati Sukarnoputri. Sadly, Megawati had not inherited the flamboyance of her dad, Indonesia’s founding father, Sukarno – known to all as Bung Karno, everybody’s Big Brother.

During the years we covered the old Bung, despite his mistakes and erratic behavior, and his appetite for encounters with the fair sex, we couldn’t help but admire his charisma, his flashy rhetoric, and his incomparable swagger.

In the case of Bambang, he had to contend with terrible crisis of the tsunami’s death and destruction, particularly in Aceh, immediately after his ascension to the Istana Merdeka. But he did well, and pulled off a successful Bandung anniversary celebration which brought Asia’s top leaders and Africa’s rulers to that "reunion" in Jakarta and Bandung, including our own GMA.

What angers Islamic militants is that President S.B.Y. then went to the United States last week for a friendly visit with US President George W. Bush.

As an offshoot of the Indonesian President’s visit, the Bush administration officially announced its decision to ease an arms embargo it imposed on Indonesia 14 years ago after the Indonesian armed forces (ABRI) killed hundreds of protesting Timorese in East Timor, and unleashed militias sponsored by them on the unarmed population, most of the victims Christians. Washington DC stated Wednesday it would permit the sale of non-lethal defense equipment, e.g. transport vehicles and communications equipment to the Indonesian military.

The US, I believe, is trying to undertake this "warming of ties" with Bambang’s armed forces and with his regime in general with some caution so as not to expose the new President to the accusation that he is an "Amboy". This was the attack mounted against him by his political enemies during the campaign.

Indeed, Bambang is one of the Indonesian leaders I found most fluent in English, since he underwent advanced military training in the US, more than a year and a half of it in Ft. Leavenworth in which he was a classmate of our Armed Forces Chief of Staff, General Efren Abu. In fact, after he was elected, Bambang invited Abu to a private dinner with him in the Istana Merdeka.

Three weeks ago, Abu told me he was definitely going to retire as chief of staff on his birthday, next June 24. He was not going to seek any extension of his term as AFP chief. What I hear is that Abu will be appointed by GMA our next Ambassador to Indonesia – counting on his first-name-basis relationship with S.B.Y. as our best diplomatic gambit. That would truly cap Abu’s career – from military Chief of Staff to diplomat. And where next?

As for the post of Chief of Staff, the betting is now on as to who’ll succeed Abu. Since one possible contender, General "Boysie" Braganza, the tough warrior who successfully conducted the last Sulu campaign as chief of SouthCom in Mindanao, is retiring next September – and, besides (despite being deserving) comes from the ROTC, not the elite Philippine Military Academy, there are only two contenders apparently in the running.

They both come from the same PMA class – Class 1972 (the same class to which General Abu and Philippine National Police Chief (Gen.) Arturo C. Lomibao, belong. These are Vice Admiral Ernesto de Leon, Flag Officer in Command (FOIC) of the Navy, and General Gene Senga, Commanding General of the Philippine Army.

Which one will be anointed by GMA? That is the question.