Archbishop Cruz: Mayors, police need jueteng money

“It is not so much the operators who need the money from jueteng (numbers racket), but police chiefs and mayors do." This was Lingayen-Dagupan archbishop Oscar Cruz’s assessment on why jueteng has made a comeback in many areas in Luzon, three months after Malacañang declared jueteng dead. “Ang kailangan kumita, mga mayor at police (The ones who need the money are not the operators but the mayors and police officials)," Cruz told dzBB radio. He made the statement in response to Puerto Princesa mayor Edward Hagedorn’s claim that jueteng is back because the operators and jueteng workers need the money. Cruz said that organized and guerrilla jueteng operations have successfully come back, with police directors and chiefs behind in some operations. “Kung minsan ang mga police director or chiefs of police pa ang nagpapaandar (Sometimes it is the police director or the chief of police who is behind the operation)," he said. The prelate said jueteng has made a comeback in Batangas and Quezon in Central Luzon, Pampanga and Nueva Ecija in Central Luzon and Albay in Bicol. He said the comeback of jueteng has merely reinforced his suspicion that Malacañang’s repeated vows to eradicate the racket were all for a show. Cruz added it would have been easy for government to get rid of jueteng if it had ordered the Philippine National Police, Department of Interior and Local Government, and National Bureau of Investigation to enforce the anti-jueteng policy. Yet, he said, Malacañang tasked Hagedorn, a mayor, to head the nationwide effort to stop jueteng. It would have been so easy if government really wanted to stop jueteng. But the problem is that it simply does not want to," he said. Cruz said that the only hope he sees that can eradicate jueteng is if the present occupant of Malacañang is replaced with someone who is more serious in anti-jueteng campaign. –GMANews.TV