Back in the Limelight

Jueteng has once again become the burning issue of the day.

As much-needed rain quenched the parched earth during the week, sizzling words gushed out from the powers that be over this undying illegal numbers game following national media attention singling out Pangasinan as one of the major hubs still of this gambling operation.

Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, the staunchest anti-jueteng advocate who is at the helm of the nationwide Krusada ng Bayan Laban sa Jueteng, has challenged Governor Amado Espino, Jr. to make an unequivocal statement indicating whether he is for or against jueteng. Black or white. Cruz wants no room for a gray area.

Espino, who has been at the center of the renewed uproar, is not biting.  But he’s got plenty to pronounce nonetheless. He points a finger at dirty politicking as the motive behind the supposedly false reports. He cites the towns in the province with no jueteng operation. He points to how other leaders in the past, both in the police force and public office, have failed to put a complete stop to it. He is asking for some time and space as he has barely warmed his seat having only been in office for a month and a half. And he has stressed the fact that one of his very first acts upon reporting for work was to call on the provincial police to double their efforts to put an end to it, once and for all.

Superintendent Isagani Nerez, the provincial director, also gave his piece. And his was practically the most lucid. “Community partnership”, he said, is the key. The police cannot make a go at it all by themselves. They need everyone’s help and contribution in the anti-jueteng campaign.

That should mean everyone with a capital E — the people, the churches, civil servants at all levels, the police, media, and the private sector.

Cruz asks how there can be development in Pangasinan if jueteng persists.

The question that should be asked as well is, if there is real development – which means people have alternative sources of income within better economic conditions as a result of the progressive efforts of a more mature and honest kind of politics – will there be any room for jueteng to thrive?

Jueteng flourishes in the midst of the people’s poverty and it feeds the greed of all those who stand to benefit from its windfall.

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