PRO-7 director to police station chiefs: Close illegal gambling booths in your areas or be relieved

Police Brigadier General Valeriano De Leon

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Station commanders and provincial directors under the Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) may be relieved from their post if there will still be illegal gambling booths operating in their areas of responsibility.

This is the warning of Police Brigadier General Valeriano De Leon,  Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7) director, after he found that there were still unauthorized gambling booths operating around Central Visayas.

After shutting down operations on unregistered Small Town Lottery (STL), Peryahan ng Bayan and other games under the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), De Leon said that reports from their intelligence monitoring had verified operations of unauthorized booths.

Read more: Labella to CCPO: Stop illegal gambling in Cebu City

According to De Leon, he is now working on a matrix that would evaluate the performance of the stations around the region which would include their operations conducted against illegal gambling.

He said that they would be intensifying their operations on illegal gambling for the following days, and if there would still be illegal gambling booths operating in the specific areas despite the continuous operations, he would hold the police station commanders accountable and would be ordering their relief.

“Then I will convene the placement board to consider his replacement for being ineffective,” said De Leon.

He said that it would be better to give other officers a chance especially when these illegal gambling booths had continued to operate even after police raid which would indicate that the actions of the police were ineffective./dbs