One strike policy on illegal gambling ordered

PHILIPPINE National Police (PNP) Chief General Archie Gamboa reiterated the relief of municipal, city, provincial and regional directors who failed to stop all forms of illegal gambling in their areas of jurisdiction.

In his visit at Camp Bado Dangwa in La Trinidad, Benguet for the 29th founding anniversary of the PNP, Gamboa stressed his stern warning for all regional directors who have been given lists of illegal gambling operators in their areas for them to comply with the directive.

On February 19, the PNP chief bared he has a list of illegal gambling operators in all the regions of the country which was distributed to all regional directors in the country.

“Our strike policy usually starts from the lower units, if you have three chiefs of police relieved in your locality, it would mean the automatic relief of the provincial director with no questions asked. Now if majority of your Provincial or City Directors say for example if you have five and three would be relieved, then automatically the regional director will be relieved. These operations will be carried

out by the national headquarters, and I am giving them one week to launch their offensive,” the Chief PNP stated.

Some sectors allegedly claimed the PNP was only conducting police operations against video karera or cock fighting while jueteng was not being given importance.

“It was written differently, what I said was I will be giving the list to our police regional directors. The regional directors know who the players are in their areas although there are peculiar regions having no jueteng or illegal numbers game operations particularly in Luzon but in the Vizayas and Mindanao, we call this as swertres and likewise it is a directive coming from me that this is a stern warning to all the regional directors to start relieving your chiefs of police and provincial directors who will not be following my instructions of stopping illegal gambling in all forms in your different areas of responsibility,” Gamboa explained.

The Chief PNP also said he eyes to strengthen the Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group (IMEG) and the Internal Affairs Service (IAS) to catch cops protecting gambling lords, and reiterated that eradicating illegal gambling is part of the internal cleansing under his helm against cops proven to be involved in illegal gambling operations.