DAGUPAN CITY – The police on Monday destroyed in public 27 video gambling machines it confiscated from various parts of the city to prove its sincerity in wiping out this form of illegal gambling affecting the youth.

With members of the media watching, Supt. Edgar Basbas, chief of police, and Supt. Ricardo Tamayo, police deputy provincial director, used  hammers to pulverize all these gadgets, including their respective mother boar5ds, into pieces.

Basbas said the gadgets were seized in canteens and residential houses near schools where they are again mushrooming as soon as the classes opened last week.

Parents called on the local police to get rid of these video gambling machines because it is in these gadgets where their children are betting their allowances instead of buying food for their snacks.

Basbas said there were more of these that were destroyed by the police in the past but it seemed the operators are not being discouraged despite their setbacks.

“This is only our first salvo this  year. We will continue till after this form of illegal gambling is finally extinguished all over Dagupan,” said Basbas.

He said the video gambling machine is a kind of gambling and so it must be eradicated along with the other games of chances that are played somewhere else.

Basbas told newsmen he received an intelligence report that the mother boards of the video gambling machine, locally known as “hataw” and so called fruit game.. were coming from Nueva Ecija.

On the other hand, Tamayo said the campaign against the video gambling machine is a continuation of an earlier campaign waged by the Police Provincial Office to rid the province of Pangasinan of gambling in any form.

“Under our Police Provincial Director Senior Supt. Isagani Nerez, there will be no let-up in the campaign against illegal gambling in whatever form throughout the province,” Tamayo said. (PNA)