There are eight jai alai operators operating in Bacolod City and in neighboring towns and cities of Negros Occidental, City Police Director Senior Supt. Celestino Guara said yesterday.
Guara, who refused to identify the operators, said the jai alai bet runners arrested by the police revealed the names of the Bacolod-based businessmen involved. Although runners had linked the eight businessmen to jai alai operations, Guara said they could not just arrest them as they need concrete evidence associating them to the operations of the illegal numbers game. He said they are now conducting surveillance on several printing presses in Bacolod after receiving intelligence reports that these entities are printing tipsters for jai alai. “We will seek legal advice on how we can charge these printing presses if we prove that they are indeed manufacturing jai alai tipsters”, Guara said. Since July this year, BCPO Vice Control Section has already apprehended 65 collectors, and 57 of them have already been charged in court, police records showed. Guara said he will submit this report to the City Council after it passed a resolution last week asking the city police for the records on the numbers of person apprehended for jai alai. Guara also dismissed as hearsay the allegations of a traffic enforcer that they were forced by one of their supervisors to collect bets for jai alai from drivers they arrest in exchange for being charged with a lesser offense. If the allegations of the traffic enforcer are true, he should have come out and identified the supervisor so the police could verify his claims. Guara said he believes the traffic enforcer must have been relieved from service and was just making up stories to get even. Meanwhile, a resolution requesting the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, and the National Bureau of Investigation to apprehend jueteng, jai-alai and other illegal gambling “cabo” and operators or financiers operating in Bacolod City, is being proposed by Bacolod Councilor El Cid Familiaran. The proposed resolution said jueteng, jai-alai, masiao, daily double and other forms of illegal gambling are not only immoral but are also considered illegal under existing laws. These forms of illegal gambling distorts the values of people especially children and makes people lazy and poorer, among others, it said. There is a need for concerned authorities to prohibit and act against its operation because of the harm it poses to the public especially children and its ill effects to the society, the resolution said. While the Bacolod City Police Office personnel are campaigning against its operation, it would be helpful if the CIDG and NBI personnel or agents will conduct their own apprehensions or operations, it added.*APN/CGS BY ADRIAN NEMES & CHRYSEE SAMILLANO Visayan Daily Star
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