NAGA CITY --- The intelligence officer and the group director of the former 504th police provincial mobile group (PPMG), now the Camarines Sur Public Safety Management Company, were relieved as the anti-illegal gambling campaign took off upon the assumption of the new acting provincial director of the Philippine National Police (PNP) here early this month.

        Senior Police Officer 4 Romulo Olino Fabiano, spokesperson of the Camarines Sur police provincial office, revealed Wednesday the relief of police officers here coincided with the assumption to office of Police Senior Supt. Petronio A. Retirado, new acting provincial director, last January 9.

        Fabiano declined to comment on the basis of the relief of police officers saying it is Chief Supt. Cecilio Binamira Calleja Jr., acting regional director, who could only explain the matter.

        He also declined to reveal the names of the relieved police officers and their status as of press time.

        Fabiano said that upon assumption to office, Retirado ordered all chiefs of police in the two cities and 35 municipalities in Camarines Sur to “conduct relentless campaign against all forms of illegal gambling, especially the illegal numbers game jueteng.”

        He said that Calleja during his visit here last January 14, reiterated and issued an ultimatum to all chiefs of police in the province to decisively stop the proliferation of jueteng.

        But Fabiano revealed only bet collectors had been apprehended so far and that no jueteng operators had been identified nor apprehended until now.

        He said it is the intelligence officer and the group director who were relieved, who have the information on the identities of operators who had been operating in Camarines Sur the previous years.

        In a report provided to the Bicol Mail, the municipal police operatives in the towns of Goa, Pili, Ragay and Libmanan were able to apprehend a total of only nine jueteng personnel and confiscated some P6,037 of jueteng bets, including paraphernalia, from January 12-14.

        Fabiano claimed that the anti-jueteng campaign upon the assumption of Retirado as acting provincial director has yielded positive results and declared the illegal numbers game to have totally stopped all over Camarines Sur.