MANILA, Sept. 18, 2012— Illegal numbers game “jueteng” has flourished that even some public schools are not spared from the operations, retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz revealed Tuesday.
The anti-gambling crusader said that there are at least four public schools in Central Luzon where there is jueteng.
“The students are being wooed to bet their little allowance. I find this irritating,” Cruz said.
Aside from Central Luzon, the archbishop also said that the collectors of the underground lottery also managed to invade one public school in Metro Manila.
“I don’t know the name of the school but it is also being frequented by jueteng collectors to get the money of students,” said Cruz.
According to him, the students could afford to bet on jueteng since the minimum bet is only between P10 to P20.
The former president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said the underground lottery is currently doing “very well” that its daily take has reached P55 million a day.
“It’s so hard to give an exact figure because the number of draw per day differs…but our ballpark figure is P45 to P55 million a day,” Cruz said.
He also chided President Benigno Aquino III for saying that the fight against jueteng is not his administration’s priority.
He then asked, “Is this what they (administration) mean by straight path? I’m confused is jueteng exempted from this straight path?” [RL/CBCPNews]
>In a press release, the Haribon Foundation is in support with the Alyansa Tigil Mina’s (ATM) anti-mining solidarity week.
“Mining has threatened and destroyed some of the very sources of life in the country, fragile ecosystems located in an archipelago, the inner workings of which we barely understand and yet we get so much from in terms of ecological services, including water, fresh air, protection from natural hazards, and capture and storage of greenhouse gases,” they said.
The foundation expressed that despite the mining industry’s claims that there is life in mining, what is really seen is the death of people and the environment.
Haribon is in solidarity and expresses full support for the call to ‘Stop the greed, no to large scale mining’ and ‘Stop the destruction, increase the budget for protection’.
They reiterated their support for the growing clamor to repeal the Mining Act of 1995 thru the passage of an Alternative Minerals Management Bill or Philippine Mineral Resources Act of 2012. (Jandel Posion)
