by Redjie Cawis

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet , April 1  - Mayor Gregorio Abalos is standing firm on banning gambling in this capital town.


Abalos said that the recent arrest of jueteng operators in barangay Pico in La Trinidad should be a signal for everyone in the municipality to stop any other operations of jueteng. He stressed that all other sorts of gambling, not only jueteng, are banned in the municipality


Operatives of the National Bureau of Investigation and La Trinidad intelligence agents recently raided a jueteng den at Pico that led the arrest of almost a dozen men behind the gambling operation.


Abalos said he got a tip that guerilla jueteng operations were being conducted in the municipality. Reports indicated that a guerilla group of jueteng operators doing business inside a van on the boundary of La Trinidad and Baguio City; however police investigation disproved the report.


Just recently, jueteng operations in the province of Benguet came back after several months of lay low. Benguet Provincial police Director PSSupt. Benjamin Lusad has ordered his men to conduct information gathering to know the areas where jueteng has risen again in the province.

Lusad said that police force is rounding up municipalities which were reported to have jueteng operations in the past.

The police are also on the look-out for mobile jueteng operation after reports reached the mayor and two van operating as jueteng dens were intercepted in Baguio City. *( PIA CAR)