Mayors trying to find best formula vs jueteng

BINALONAN, Pangasinan — Mayors nationwide are trying to find the best formula to totally stamp out jueteng even as the government’s new anti-jueteng adviser believes the mayors themselves share part of the blame for the illegal numbers game.

Binalonan Mayor Ramon Guico Jr. said the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP), of which he is the president, and the League of Cities will have a joint meeting in Palawan on Aug. 31 to Sept. 2 purposely to discuss the "best options" to help the administration of President Arroyo totally get rid of jueteng.

Asked what the best formula could be, Guico, a member of the new advisory task force on jueteng, said the mayors still have to discuss it.

Guico believes that the self-imposed Sept. 15 deadline of the task force head, Puerto Princesa City Mayor Edward Hagedorn, is possible if the mayors nationwide will fully cooperate.

But Guico said in the dialect, "It’s difficult if it stops in one town but continues in other municipalities or cities."

Earlier, Hagedorn said jueteng exists because the mayors themselves allow it to operate in their respective jurisdictions.

Thus, to stop the illegal numbers game, Hagedorn said the mayors should stop their own jueteng operations or those of other gambling lords.

Hagedorn admitted that prior to his election as Puerto Princesa mayor in 1992, he had operated jueteng in the city for six years, employing at least 2,000 people as runners and collectors.

But when he was elected, Hagedorn said jueteng grounded to a halt. "When I decided to stop (jueteng), it stopped because I was the operator," he said.

Before he did so, he said he found jobs for the displaced jueteng workers as street sweepers and personnel of his Bantay Kalikasan program.

Asked if he, as task force head, has identified jueteng operators nationwide, Hagedorn said he has submitted a list to the President.

He, however, refused to divulge more details, saying it was a confidential report.

Mrs. Arroyo is hounded by allegations that she used jueteng money in her campaign in the 2004 elections and that some members of her family were recipients of jueteng payola. — With Perseus Echeminada