Friday, April 25, 2008 Video karera: a hit among kids By Annabelle L. Ricalde
CHILDREN as young as five years old in urban-poor communities in Cagayan de Oro are the ones getting hooked to video karera.
Too poor to play computer games in cyber cafes, which cost P10 to p15 an hour, children of poor families instead forked out their one-peso coins to play video karera, more popularly known as "tolilong."
"Their one peso coin can win a few hundreds of pesos. That is the attraction of the game," a video karera operator told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro.
Mayor Constantino Jaraula said video karera machines are operating in at least 20 percent of Cagayan de Oro's 80 barangays.
The game is being openly played inside houses rented by the operators, often with consent by barangay and police officials.
"Everybody turn their eyes away. The gambling machines are everywhere in the city," Philippine National Police (PNP) Northern Mindanao Director Teodorico Capuyan said.
Video karera operators maintained that they do not allow children to play but a random check made by Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro revealed this is not true.
Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro managed to take pictures of children playing the video karera machines in barangays Carmen and Puntod, this city. One is even openly playing in Kinasanghan, Barangay Iponan, in full view of passersby.
Every video karera machine has a TV screen, a joystick and a computer panel filled with buttons for control. Horses will appear on the screen once you dropped a one-peso coin on the slot.
The object is to race the horses around the oval like you do in horse racing. If your horse wins, the machine will give out coins just like a regular slot machine.
Depending on who is the operator, video karera machines rewards winners with amounts ranging from P100 to P500. You can also hit the jackpot of P1,000. It is the small inexpensive computer in the machine that decides how much money will be shelled out.
And it has become a big hit among the children.
"It really depends on the skill of the player. If the player is good, then there will be more wins. More wins means more money," an aficionado said.
He said the game is no better than the ones played in the shopping malls where children of rich families pay P10 to play.
"In tolilong, you have the chance to win while those in the malls do not give out any money," the aficionado said.
Retired police officer Salome Catulong, a well-known child and women abuse expert, said the game are destroying the minds of the children and urged city officials to stop its proliferation.
"This game is very addictive to the children. They will save their money just to play it, hoping to get quick cash if they win," said Catulong, who retired from the Cagayan de Oro City Police Office (Cocpo) early this year.
She said during her stint as head of the police Child and Women Desk section, she personally knew some children who developed the bad habit of not going to school and instead spent their allowance playing video karera.
What is worse, Catulong said even fathers and mothers are playing the gambling machines alongside their children.
"Imbes ipalit sa bugas idula na hinoon sa tolilong ug video karera ug napildi mag-away ang magtiayon maglinabayay na dayon sa kaldero (Instead of buying rice, the parents used the money to play. The result is domestic quarrel)," she said.
Catulong said she, with the help of some barangay tanod, seized two video karera machines from a house owned by a certain "Estrada" in Isla de Oro in Barangay 13 after she received several complaints from the parents.
She said they were about to turn over the confiscated machines to Maharlika, headquarters of the Cocpo, when she received a call from a police officer who asked her to return the machines to Estrada.
Catulong said she did not heed the request of the police officer and brought the machines to Maharlika. There she asked a fellow policeman who was on duty at that time to properly record the confiscated items and jotted it in the official police blotter.
Next day, Catulong narrated she was surprised to find when she went back to Maharlika that the machines were already gone. Not only that, all the records of the seizure including the police blotter was gone.
Catulong said when she asked fellow policemen what had happened to the machines, she was told to just keep quiet.
"Wala gyud toa ma-traced kay wala naman lang pud ko nangusog kay 'pader' man daw ang akong mabangga and I know who that 'pader' is pero I don't want to name names (I no longer tried to know what happened to the machines because I was told I will catch the ire of somebody powerful)," Catulong said.
The PNP regional command is conducting an investigation on the police involvement in the video karera operations in the city.
One of the police officers who is said to be under investigation told Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro that his name was not on the list.
Chief Inspector Danieldo Tumanda, former head of the City Mobile Group, said he has no pending case for his alleged involvement in video karera.
"I don't even understand why until now gi-implicate ko. In the first place dili ko protector ug wala pud ko nag-operate," Tumanda said.
He said it is impossible for him to be involved with the gambling syndicates because he was already relieved from the city police force since November last year and have enrolled at the PNP Regional Training school where he will graduate this December.
Tumanda said he and fellow officer, Chief Inspector Jason Aguillon, are not fighting each other for who will gain control of the video karera operations in the city, which insiders say, rakes in P2 million a week.
He said allegations against him hurt his career as police officer and graduate of the PNP Academy, the country's premier police institution.
Aguillon and Tumanda, along with two other police officers and 15 members of the City Mobile Force, are facing charges of illegal arrest, torture, and evidence planting before the Office of the Ombudsman and National Police Commission.
