Jueteng payola list pits mediamen vs. each other
PAYOLA “WHITE PAPER”
CHIEF Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil has left Region 1 for another posting leaving questions about continued jueteng operations in Pangasinan and alleged involvement of local media practitioners in protecting jueteng unsettled.
A regular item in The PUNCH’s “People have not forgotten” section pointed out the continued jueteng operations in the province as evidenced by the squabble among local media practitioners for a share of the “media-yola” (media payola).
Bataoil refused to comment on the PUNCH item which observers believe could implicate the police officers in both the region and the province in the distribution of the “hush” money.
To date, jueteng continues to be rampant in the province despite constant denials from the provincial police.
Local mediamen continue to talk openly of media-yola allegedly coming from the Philippine National Police Regional Office on top of the jueteng payola money for local journalists by a local jueteng lord who uses a radio reporter from San Carlos City as bagman.
The mediamen “on the take” reportedly receive P20,000 to P60,000 a month in exchange for not writing or doing a radio commentary about jueteng, an illegal numbers game.
Some media practitioners also reportedly get gasoline allowances at the PNP Regional Office in San Fernando, La Union.
JOURNALISTS
CRY FOULMeanwhile, a number of journalists were up in arms after another list of media practitioners allegedly naming those “on the take” again surfaced.
They said that their names are being used by another circle of mediamen (close to the PNP officials) to shield the latter from any investigation.
Not confident of a PNP investigation, the listed journalists are now calling for an independent investigation by the National Bureau of Investigation in order to clear their names and get to the bottom of the jueteng payola issue.
Bataoil has since been called to investigate and bare the results in order to clear the innocent but had refused to act.
Ging Cardinoza, station manager of Aksyon Radio in Dagupan and correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, was enraged when told he was listed as receiving P60,000.
He vehemently denied the allegation and he said he asked the management of the radio station to conduct its own investigation on his and his staff’s alleged involvement in “media-yola” in order to clear those who are not guilty.
The PUNCH’s Ding Micua was incredulous on being told his name was also on the list supposedly receiving P30,000 a month. (The PUNCH has been in the forefront regularly exposing and writing about jueteng operations -Editor).
Meanwhile, Behn Hortaleza, editor of Pangasinan Star, reportedly resigned his membership in the Pangasinan Tri-Media Association he helped organized after he discerned that a number of the members have been regularly on the take. He didn’t name them.
Media payola operation
According to local journalists in the know, the regular jueteng payola to media is delivered on Sundays before the 15th and 30th of the month by a man ostensibly from the regional police to two women media practitioners, acting as “bagmen”, at a fastfood joint in Dagupan.
The two women are known to others as reporters covering the PNP beat.
The distribution of the payola to intended recipients takes place at a shopping mall the following day.
The local media wonder if Bataoil’s successor will also turn a blind eye to the continued jueteng in Pangasinan and abet the media payola that has seriously tainted the integrity of many local mainstream journalists.
Bataoil is replaced by Chief Superintendent Romeo Hilomen, his classmate in Philippine Military Academy Class ’76 and former chief of the Police Protection Service Office.
Hilomen is one of the policemen summoned by the Senate in connection with the alleged kidnapping of Engr. Rodolfo ‘Jun’ Lozada, the second whistleblower in the NBN-ZTE scandal.
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