NOW that the election hullabaloo has calmed down, time to go back and deal with old and unrelenting issues such as jueteng.

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, the country’s top anti-jueteng advocate, said his movement will resume its campaign against the illegal numbers game with renewed life and resolve.

In a statement posted in his blog last week, Cruz, chairman of Krusada ng Bayan Laban sa Jueteng (People’s Crusade Against Jueteng), said while they slowed down in their efforts in the past months given the campaign and the election fever, they have definitely not abandoned their mission.

At the same time, Cruz lambasted President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for having used income from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) to fund the television advertisements of the administration’s candidates, majority of whom lost, during the campaign period.

“It is both shameful and strange that the national leadership has repeated advertisements during the election time frame. It is already well seated in office and much fortified in its tenure of power. Yet it saw the need of still having long and loud advertisements singing it dubious praises,” Cruz said.

Citing the millions of suffering from hunger and dying of sickness, he censured the Arroyo government for having “the guts to bleed the government through its gambling corporations to build its image-not to fund charitable works as the government gambling directors repeatedly sing as their professed commitment.”

The prelate said the recent national elections, as expected, were closely linked to jueteng and other forms of illegal gambling nationwide with revenues from the illegal game flowing into the campaign funds of some candidates.

“As predicted, the  administration and its allies together with uniformed agencies saw nothing,  heard nothing, said nothing and did nothing”, he said.

To Pagcor and jueteng, Cruz said, “Tama na! Sobra na

GOOD DEVELOPMENT

He said the victory of a good number of key opposition candidates who are  certifiably against jueteng is a good development even as he noted that a number of them are not exactly receptive even to the so called “legal gambling”, he added.

He said both the Krusadang Bayang Laban sa Jueteng and the Krusadang Bayang Laban sa Sugal, a complementary group advocating absolutely no gambling in the country, welcome the election of these candidates 

The anti-jueteng group is now preparing a new strategy and organizing new projects.

He admitted that “as foreseen, the Krusadang Bayang Laban sa Jueteng was no match to the power and might, money and force of the government agencies concerned, the professional jueteng lords plus the many big  jueteng beneficiaries”.—EVA

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