BAGUIO CITY: After Gov. Amado Espino, who will be linked next to jueteng?

A Liberal Party source during the vacation of President Benigno Aquino said Malacañang will be focusing its anti-jueteng drive further north.

This was likewise confirmed by a statement released by Free Ilocos Sur, stating “the administration’s anti-jueteng drive will soon train its guns on Ilocos Sur.”

According to the source, the Palace is now gathering pieces of evidence that will pin down a known political figure with his involvement of jueteng in the province.

The administration is now flexing its muscles against the illegal gambling campaign especially in the north, the source said.

Before the year ended, Bugallon, Pangasianan town Mayor Rodrigo Orduna accused Pangasinan Gov. Amado Espina of allegedly pocketing P900 million from the operations of the illegal numbers game in the province.

Espino, according to Orduna, allegedly received the protection money in trenches for letting the numbers game operate during his incumbency as governor.

The Department of Interior and Local Government has formed a team to investigate the allegations.

Earlier, Kaya Natin! Kaya Natin! Movement for Good Governance and Ethical Leadership, said, “funds that are culled from jueteng and illegal gambling operations are used by our corrupt politicians in connivance with some officers from the Philippine National Police (PNP) to buy votes and hire henchmen to intimidate and harass voters.”

The statement was issued as it challenged newly appointed General Allan Purisima as the new Chief of the Philippine National Police, to stop the operations of jueteng.

“We challenge Purisima to immediately put an end to jueteng and illegal gambling operations all over our country particularly in Pampanga, Pangasinan, Isabela and Nueva Ecija,” they said.

We believe that there can never be fair and honest elections as long as jueteng and illegal gambling operations continue to persist in our country, the group added.

According to them, “the funds obtained from these illegal operations are used by these same politicians to also pay off election officers and officials in order to obtain a result that will be favorable to them. Sadly, even some members of the media also receive money from these illegal operations.”

“We challenge the new PNP Chief to end jueteng and illegal gambling operations all over the country by January 31,2013. We believe that this can be achieved with strong political will as this was already done during the time of then PNP Chief and now Senator Ping Lacson wherein jueteng operations in our country were stopped for over a year,” they stressed.

Kaya Natin is co-founded by the late DILG Sec. Jessie Robredo, who as mayor of Naga City did not allow the illegal numbers game to proliferate in his city.

Earlier, a Kaya Natin member in Ilocos Sur, Tagudin Mayor Roque Versoza Jr. has declared his town as jueteng free.

Tagudin is the only town in Ilocos Sur that is jueteng-free.

“This town will remain jueteng free,“ Versoza stressed.

According to him “only the financers of jueteng gain from its operations.”

“I have been pressured by operators and other politicians to give a green light for jueteng operations in my town, but I said no,” he said.

If one wants to stop jueteng operations, it only takes political will, he added.