Money less VM anxious as filing of CoC approaches

          Wish Illegal Number Game Jueteng Around

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Vice mayors in Pangasinan these days are anxious as the filing of the certificate of candidacy (CoC) will be on Thursday because they are financially handicapped to the rush of solicitors who will exploit their candidacy, a vice mayor of a Central Pangasinan town lamented.

“The filing will be on October 11-12 to 15-17 this month and election will be on May 13, 2019. Can you imagine the waves of indigents, public employees like teachers, folks in the barangays who need monies for their medical problems, Christmas programs, fiestas and basketball uniforms,” he told this paper.

The number two chief executive of a first class burgeoning town cited that he and his fellow vice mayors would have no money problem if illegal game jueteng still exist.

“When President Rodrigo Duterte became president in June 2016 jueteng was stopped on the following year and it was replaced by the small town lottery (STL), then our ingreso from the maintainer of jueteng stopped, too,” he deplored.

Many vice mayors in these Pangasinan towns were recipients of the P25 thousand a week average during the heyday of the illegal number games that were drawn under the acacia tree to dupe the poor gullible bettors.

A former supervisor of jueteng in a town in the mammoth province narrated:

“Noong sa jueteng pa ako kami-kami na lang ang nagsasabi kung ano ang mananalo na numero”.

He said some jueteng supervisors draw 37 balls with number in a container rattan three times a day under the acacia tree.

The vice mayor even referred to his predecessor who regularly dole-outs monies to some media men to lambast on their radio programs and newspapers the then sitting mayor because of his ambition to become the chief elected executive.

After a year of this brinkmanship, the mayor asked the maintainer, who is under his watch, to stop the five thousand pesos a week payola to the critical vice mayor so those media men undermining him would stop too because of the absence of the incentives.

A mayor in the Fourth Congressional District of the forty four towns and four cities’ province told this newspaper that the three percent of the STL is inadequate compared to those given by the operators of illegal number games Jueteng and Meridien Vista Gaming Corporation (MVGC) Jai Alai when Gloria Arroyo and Benigno Aquion III, respectively, were presidents of the country.

“Noong Jueteng P600 thousand ako monthly or P20,000 a day ako. Sa akin lang iyon, iba din sa vice mayor na 1.5 percent at chief of police na 1.5 percent. Noong Meridiane na P500 thousand ako o P17,000.  Iba rin iyong kay vice mayor and chief of police”.

This huge amount given to the mayor of this almost 100,000 populated first class town was usually given to indigents, supporters, and several media men from the more than 200 practitioners and those bogus who bring their families and friends when they go to his house or office.

He said when STL replaced Jai-Alai, the vice mayor was at a loss because he have numbers of mistresses and children out of wedlock he sends to school.

“I gave him the other week ten thousand pesos because he came to me sad and I pitied him,” the mayor said.

In July, 2017, a vice mayor told this paper that his mayor cheated him on the bookish given by a maintainer to his mayor.

But with the suspected shenanigan being done by the mayors, he said he and his fellow vice mayors are in a bind presently because they could not give anything to indigents who go to their houses and offices for alms.

He explained that during that time his 1.5% supposedly translates to more than P200, 000 monthly where the mayor deducted P90, 000 for the nine municipal councilors who received P10, 000 each monthly while he was given P50, 000.

“The mayor was already cheating me by more than P60, 000 monthly but I kept mum on it,” he deplored.

Meanwhile, many newspaper publishers even complained that the vice mayors become greedier on the publication of ordinances on their newspapers by asking half of the seven thousand pesos per page or one hundred to two hundred thousand pesos of the thick pages’ ordinances like tax.

“It was just fine if we did not compete on the strict process of the bidding at the BAC (Bids & Awards Committee). Sa bidding pababaan kami ng presyo. Then the secretary of the Sanggunian (legislative council) would come to us and tell us that the vice mayor wanted to get half of the awarded amount as his S.O.P”, ang kapal talaga ng mukha”.

The female publisher said she could understand that the vice mayor could only pocket the appropriation intended to the publication but he should not be greedy because they won it in a legitimate bidding process.

“We know that the vice mayor’s clout to pocket government funds is incomparable to the mayors who can have a cut of up to twenty percent to a government project, but he must not imposed half of the awarded amount to us since we paid too for the ink, paper, taxes, and our workers in running our printing press”.