Red herring

Red herring | Daily Tribune

The twists and turns in the electronic cockfighting, or talpak, mystery, involving alleged executions of workers from what was once a vast gambling operation, are clearly being manipulated.

A whistleblower had implicated several influential personalities in government and the private sector for allegedly being involved in lucrative operations that utilized technology to reach the nation’s farthest corners.

The direction of the investigation, however, points to authorities focusing on the police cohorts as masterminds in the mass murder, which a whistleblower estimated could reach 100 aficionados, who were suspected of rigging the online cockfighting matches.

The missing sabungeros have been reported as early as 2021, but only recently has a solid lead been presented with the revelations of witness Julie “Dondon” Patidongan, who claimed to know where the bodies of the execution victims were dumped, somewhere in Lake Taal.

Patidongan also spilled the beans on who makes up the network, maintaining the illegal cash cow.

The guerrilla operations of talpak, after it was outlawed in May 2022, still bring in an estimated P50 million to P80 million a week, beating all legal gambling operations, including casinos that spend huge capital to keep themselves in business.

At its peak, when licensed by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, e-sabong operations generated significant revenues.

The government collected approximately P640 million per month from e-sabong operations in early 2022. Then President Rodrigo Duterte cited it as a primary contributor to the government’s massive efforts to address the pandemic.

Lucky 8 Star Quest Inc., the operator, disclosed that the online betting game earned a gross monthly income of P3 billion from around P60 billion in monthly bets.

Deducting agents’ commissions of P2 billion to P2.5 billion and expenses of one percent of the total, the firm’s net income was approximately P800 million to P900 million per month, or a clean P225 million per week.

The business has been well insulated from scrutiny through well-placed connections, which included local and national officials and members of the police force, according to the informant.

Incredibly, investigators are now asking the source of e-sabong information to surface and identify the 15 police officers whom he tagged, despite the apparent knowledge of Patidongan of the extent of the crimes committed and the perpetrators.

Patidongan is being asked to execute an affidavit against the cops “so cases can be filed against them.”

In the hierarchy of the e-sabong cartel, the police runners are at the bottom of the pecking order, which will make them scapegoats of the big-time operators who Patidongan appears ready to identify.

Diverting the probe over the death of the sabungeros to the small fries demolishes the earlier vow of the Philippine National Police and the other law-enforcing and investigating agencies that no one is sacred in terms of accountability.

“No one is above the law” was the phrase used to make good of the bundling of former President Rodrigo Duterte to The Hague, Netherlands to face International Criminal Court charges.

It must also apply to the talpak controversy, which has created a gambling empire that boasts of impregnability due to the thick shield of influence that surrounds it.

The conspiracy of silence surrounding the ringleaders of the killings, carried out in the most hideous ways, according to the witness, must not be allowed to prevail.