Lifestyle check should cover ‘cops-cum-gambling lords’

MANILA, Philippines - The government’s plan to conduct a lifestyle check on officials of the Philippine National Police (PNP) should include policemen who are “doubling as gambling lords,” a well-placed source told The STAR yesterday.

The source said the PNP listed 27 policemen moonlighting as gambling lords last year and the number may have swelled because “more and more policemen are also now financiers or operators of video karera machines, bookies of small-town lotteries and horse racing, and other illegal activities.”

These erring policemen are also among the “15-30 cops” who report only during paydays, the source said.

“They are not meted administrative sanctions because they bribe their superiors to make them appear to be reporting for work when the truth is they are in their respective mansions monitoring their illegal gambling businesses,” said the source, who requested anonymity.

“These policemen doubling as gambling lords are receiving a decent salary from the government but are not exercising their duties as what their oath of allegiance called for. The government is hit by a double-whammy in their existence in the police force,” the source added.

Worst, these erring policemen are not paying the correct taxes, the source claimed.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Bureau of Internal Revenue are set to conduct a lifestyle check among police officials in a bid to weed out corrupt PNP members and make them accountable for their misdeeds.

The lifestyle check came in the wake of recent criminal incidents involving law enforcers, including a robbery along EDSA in Mandaluyong City, a photo of which was posted online and went viral early this month.

PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima has ordered an investigation into a “quota system” which reportedly forces police officers to collect weekly bribes from illegal activities on behalf of higher officials.

Purisima ordered the probe to determine the veracity of the information given by a ranking police officer, said PNP spokesman Chief Superintendent Reuben Theodore Sindac.

“This is a serious allegation. We should check first the validity but at the same time when the reports came out, there was an instruction to establish the validity and veracity of his allegations,” Sindac added.

But the well-placed source told The STAR that it is an open secret among police officials who have enriched themselves in their positions and who are doubling as gambling lords.

“There’s no need for a whistle-blower because a majority of the police officials who enriched themselves and the gambling lords are the talk of the town in police camps. They are very poor several years back, but are now living in mansions and using expensive vehicles,” the source said.

The government should also include in its lifestyle check the “bagmen” or “engkargado” of police officials who are implementing the quota system.

The source noted that every police station and district, provincial and regional office maintains a bagman who “supervises” the money-making schemes of their commanders. The bagmen are either junior officers or enlisted men who are trusted by their commanders, while others got the position through the highest “bid.” With Delon Porcalla, Ric Sapnu