Punchline
Jai-teng makes cops and mayors happy
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
THE good days are back! Jai-teng (jai-alai-cum-jueteng) is well and alive!
Mayors and police chiefs are raking it in with 3 draws daily, thanks to the legal cover of a supposed license to operate off-fronton jai-alai betting stations. The jai-alai cobradores in their uniforms are now untouchable entities making their rounds collecting and soliciting bets for jueteng. Nobody bets on jai-alai. How do we know this?
Simply ask the roaming off-fronton bet collectors if they know the rules of jai-alai with which to convince prospective bettors. Ask them for the names of fronton players for each day. Do they know what a “chula” shot is? I doubt very much if they can even hazard a good guess. A sheepish grin is all that the cobrador will give. Explanations? Perish the thought.
Now ask a bettor the same questions. The answer one will likely get is: “Ang taya ko sa jueteng, wala akong pakialam sa jai-alai!”
The facts are all there but our police and mayors would rather see nothing, hear nothing and do nothing to protect unsuspecting jueteng bettors from rigged gambling.
Need we ask why?
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A SINISTER PLOT IN THE MAKING. When it rains these days, it pours like the heavens won’t ever stop crying. That’s the context for the worsening flooding in many areas in Pangasinan.
For Dagupan Mayor Benjie Lim, however, it means derailed plans one after the other for his “value engineering” projects. From the illegal disbursement of calamity fund without a declaration of state of calamity by the sanggunian that was categorically reported by the Commission on Audit as patently in violation of R.A. 10121, to the illegal construction of the Daongan (and the Kangkungan) ed Dawel sans building permit and public bidding, Mr. Lim is now liable to be charged before the Ombudsman for his deliberate and premeditated violation of laws.
Now comes possible land-grabbing cases from both the national government and the landowner of the area where the “Kangkungan” has started construction. Evidently, Mr. Lim directed the construction of a planned restaurant without prior consent of both the government and the family that owns the fishpond encroached upon by the Kangkungan project.
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But Mr. Lim is never known to be a quitter until he gets his way, by hook or by crook. Since he already opted not to use “hook” in both the Daongan and Kangkungan projects, Mr. Lim’s fans will be delighted to know that a “crooked” way is now in the offing to cover-up the illegal aspects of his project management.
I have yet to get a confirmation from my two moles in the city hall but City Administrator Vlad Mata already hinted of the launching of a cover-up for Mr. Lim’s “value-engineered” Daongan project.
A rigged public bidding will be staged in a week or two ostensibly for the construction of the (completed) white tents in the facility. Mr. Lim is obviously keen not only in recovering and earning from the costs of the construction for his “friend-investor” but to show compliance with the law. (Some irreverent regulars in the city hall tell me that the mayor’s “investor” has “L “and “B” as two of the initials)
As if on cue, Mr. Mata now denies what everyone already knows. He maintains that his boss never admitted that no prior bidding for the Daongan facility was conducted. Hahaha! In his mind, it’s the appropriate opening salvo for the fake public bidding to be conducted. Obviously, for a reservist lieutenant colonel who took advanced lessons in military psy-war, he continues to think like a bungling private second class that doesn’t understand how basic intelligence gathering works.
He should have known before denying a broadcasted statement of his boss, all radio stations in the country are required to tape and keep custody of all public affairs programs for a period before these can be erased to allow possible aggrieved parties access to the evidence in case of a complaint for slander. The tapes don’t lie and I believe Aksyon Radio and DZRD have all that on tape, not to mention the existence of copies of the interviews by enterprising journalists.
So go ahead Lt. Col. “Pinocchio” Mata, lie and lie until your nose grows long enough for you to suck on!
Unfortunately then for the key and bit players, try hard as the conspiracy in the city hall might to plug all holes in their desperate drive to still end up the winner, the writing on the wall is luminously clear. A crime has already been committed and any attempt at cover-up will only lead to their sinking deeper in their quagmire created by their greed and arrogance.
The members of the bids and awards committee (headed by Mr. Mata), namely: Virgil Tangco, Eduardo Magno, Atty. Roy Laforteza, Maximo Tan and Engr. Nestor de Vera; City Auditor Ofelia Celi and the City Engineer Virginia Rosario are, therefore, on notice – any public bidding that will be held for the already completed Daongan facility is just as criminal for failing to conduct it before the construction started. Also, any public bidding that is not supported by an ordinance is defective and void ab initio and I certainly don’t recall the city council passing an ordinance authorizing the construction and public bidding for the Daongan facility. To them, I say- Prepare to go to jail with your boss if you dare lend yourself to a rigged bidding.
I liken this move to a desperate attempt of a rapist to prove that no rape was committed by further humiliating the victim, contending that the victim lied. In this case, Mr. Lim et al. would like to the Ombudsman to believe that everyone is lying for insisting that the public bidding was held after the completion of the Daongan!
If Dagupenos feel that this brazen shameless plot still doesn’t insult them enough, I don’t know what will! Ginagawang napakatanga na ang mga Dagupenos….Ok lang?
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NO HEADLIGHTS. If police are reportedly visible in the province’s towns and cities at night, why do we still see PUJs and tricycles plying the streets without their headlights on?
These unthinking PUJ and tricycle drivers are obviously ignorant of the rules yet one wonders why the cops and LTO agents do not take them off the streets while the drivers and their would-be victims are still alive.
If the cops and LTO can’t teach and compel motorists to comply with lifesaving driving rules, then they only have themselves to blame for the series of road accidents in our highways and streets.
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DOUBLE-VICTIMS. While flood victims are nursing themselves towards recovery, there is something that Guv Spines can do urgently to spare the same flood victims from becoming habitual “double-victims” each time they are hauled to school buildings.
They become “double-victims” when they are made to suffer from the abject lack of basic facilities like functioning toilets and running water in evacuation centers. Without these, evacuated victims are prone to diarrhea, dysentery, flu, etc…
Guv Spines, town and city mayors should direct their respective Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Councils to evaluate the existing facilities in schools in flood prone barangays, and act to correct the deficiencies immediately before another flooding hits the province.
Food and drinking water can be supplied at any given notice, but no one can provide functioning toilets with running water at the time of the emergency.
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