NBI, Cops Raid PCSO's Games in P'sinan

YOLANDA SOTELO

Philippine Daily Inquirer

DAGUPAN CITY—Attempts by the Philippine Charity Sweeptakes Office’s (PCSO) Peryahan Games to conquer bet-rich Pangasinan province have been spoiled by police raids on the game’s draw center in Laoac town.

PCSO's Peryahan Games' betting kiosk in Binmaley, Pangasinan.
The kiosk opened last January 24. Other towns that junked and
replaced Meridian Jai Alai - played like jueteng - with Peryahan
Games - are Malasiqui, San Jacinto, Mapandan, Laoac, and others.

Edward Aguilar, spokesperson of Global Tech Mobile Online Corp., which owns the Peryahan Games franchise here, said the draw center had been raided three times since it opened on Dec. 20 last year.

Two days after the draw center opened, Aguilar said, the police raided it and detained six sales agents at the local police station. The agents were released after questioning, he said.

The Peryahan Games is a state-run numbers game that resembles the illegal “jueteng.” It is being pilot-tested in Pangasinan, the 13th province to host the game.

On Dec. 23, a team from the regional and provincial police, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group again raided the center and took the same agents to the police station and the NBI headquarters in Manila for questioning before they were released, he said.

Unlike Jueteng and Meridian Jai-Alai, Palaro Games' Hulog Holen result
from its draw center in Laoac town is publicly posted on the white board
 at the Games' betting kiosk in Binmaley, Pangasinan.
Posting of wining number - a combination of two sets of two numbers - are
held three times a day.  

On Jan. 14, NBI agents conducted a third raid and took nine sales agents and four bet collectors to the NBI office in Manila.

“Yesterday (Jan. 21), they were released, along with a resolution from the Department of Justice indicating they were not engaged in the illegal numbers game, jueteng,” Aguilar said.

The nine sales agents were armed with PCSO identification cards, gadgets used to print bets and certifications attesting to their employment by Global Tech.

The four bet collectors, who are not Global Tech employees, are still being held at the NBI, Aguilar said.

On Friday, the police said that Global Tech’s operations are legitimate.