Jai alai workers freed

DAGUPAN CITY—Fifty-seven employees of Meridien Vista Gaming Corp. (MVGC) were arrested by National Bureau of Investigation agents in Urbiztondo town on Wednesday on a charge of illegal gambling, but were ordered released by a Pangasinan prosecutor on Thursday.

San Carlos City inquest prosecutor, Gil Rosario, dismissed the complaints against the employees filed by the agents who raided the MVGC office in the town.

He ordered the NBI to immediately release the employees unless it could find other legal grounds for their continued detention.

Armed with a search warrant, the agents raided the house of Rudy de los Santos that served as MVGC office in Barangay Poblacion in Urbiztondo.

During the inquest, lawyer Liwawa Siapno, MVGC counsel, said the firm was “duly authorized and licensed to operate.” She presented a Court of Appeals resolution in 2011 stopping the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior and Local Government from staging a crackdown on MVGC’s jai alai betting and gaming stations. —GABRIEL CARDINOZA