CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City police will soon be monitoring the accounted ‘e-sabong’ venues in the city pending formal directives from the national headquarters.
Police Lieutenant Colonel Wilbert Parilla, deputy director for operations of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), made this statement following the pronouncement of President Rodrigo Duterte agreeing to suspend operations of ‘e-sabong’ or online cockfighting in the country.
READ: Duterte OK with suspension of online ‘sabong’ permits-Sotto
Parilla said that they are still waiting for the formal directives from their national headquarters regarding this issue.
“As long as naa nay directives, we will implement that directly,” Parilla said.
“So far wala nato ma (collate), but we have the figure. Almost all of our stations duna nay mga online sabong and then it will be immediately implemented once naa nay directives,” he added.
(So far we are yet to [collate] this, but we have the figure. Almost all of our stations already have online sabong [venues] and then it will be immediately implemented once there are directives already.)
Parilla said that they believe operators of these ‘e-sabong’ venues in the city already have knowledge over this pronouncement by the president. Once they receive the directives, they will start implementing these in venues.
Should one will refuse to follow, Parilla said that they are ready to arrest violators and they will be charged with formal complaints on involvement in illegal gambling.
Parilla added that their monitoring will not be challenging considering that these listed venues have face to face settings. It would be easy for them to monitor these should their operations be deemed illegal.
“Ang online sabong nga giingon sa atoang presidente, kadto nang dunay mga big screens. Mas dali na natong i jmplement kay duna man tay numbers kung asa ni sila dapita, accounted ni sila tanan. Ubay ubay sad ni sila,” Parilla said.
(The online sabong that our president is referring to are those [venues] that have big screens. It would be easy for us to implement since we already have numbers and where these are located, they are all accounted for. There are a lot of them.)
Regarding issues that transpired in the National Capitol Region wherein at least 31 ‘sabongeros’ went missing, Parilla said that they have not received reports and complaints of the same concern here but added that they are ready to investigate if there are any.
READ: Missing ‘e-sabong’ workers presumed dead
Parilla said, though, that they received reports of couples who were fighting because of their partner’s engagement to the said gambling activity.
“Usa sa mga na apektuhan kaayo is kining mga drivers, mga construction workers kay anytime pwede ra sila muadto. Unlike sa traditional nga sabong naay schedule, sa online sabong, 24 hours,” he added.
(One of those affected by this are the drivers, construction workers since anytime they can now attend. Unlike the traditional cockfight wherein there are schedules, in online sabong, it is 24 hours.)
/bmjo
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