Press Release
April 21, 2022

Dispatch from Crame No. 1250:
Sen. Leila M. de Lima on PNP officials engaging in E-Sabong

4/21/22

PNP officials and their families should be banned from holding any interest in E-sabong or any gambling business. This must be one of the proposals for legislation after a PNP official - the NCRPO Drug Enforcement Unit Chief - admitted before the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs that his wife is a shareholder of a company engaged in E-sabong.

It is quite apparent that apart from being jueteng protectors, some PNP officials are also now entering into business with E-sabong operators through proxies. And considering that E-sabong and jueteng operators come from the same network of gambling lords, it is not really far remote that their police protectors now shift to benefitting from the E-sabong business by directly owning interest in the gambling business through their wives or family members.

This reality of police officials having vested interests in gambling businesses presents a new scourge to our social order, simply because of the glaring conflict of interest in a situation where our peace officers and law enforcers will prioritize the protection of their own business interests over the performance of their duty to serve and protect the citizenry. We see the further corruption of our entire police force under the veneer of engaging in a legitimate business.

But we all know that this is no different from the consequences of police protection of illegal jueteng operations. The police generals and colonels are no longer beholden to the government or to the people they serve, but to the jueteng lords and E-sabong magnates. Surely, this will only fast track our descent into becoming a gambling mafia state where the PNP's loyalty is no longer to the people and the country, but to the powerful gambling billionaires who have them in their pockets.

Gambling lords favor recruitment of the police into their business because the latter's law enforcement powers is used to protect what is essentially a socially repugnant but lucrative enterprise that invites the proliferation of other criminal activities and vices. Hence, the conflict of interest.

The police are supposed to fight crime, not contribute to its proliferation. There is therefore nothing innocent in a police official or his wife engaging in the business of E-sabong. It is as destructive to our social order and is no different from corruption. ###

(Access the handwritten version of Dispatch from Crame No. 1250, here: https://issuu.com/senatorleilam.delima/docs/1_c7496da5941d91)

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