Under an unusual arrangement, the Committee on Games and Amusements chaired by Sen. Manuel "Lito’’ Lapid will take up the legalization of jueteng, which is proposed by the mayors of Pampanga, hotbed of jueteng where Lapid was once governor and where his son is the incumbent governor.

The Committee on Public Order chaired by Sen. Manuel Villar will take up the corruption issue which is part and parcel of the numbers game.

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For a while, it looked like there would be no inquiry. Some had called it irrelevant.

But the jueteng issue, fired by Msgr. Oscar Cruz, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, and Sen. Panfilo Lacson, has acquired a lift of its own. No amount of downplaying the issue can sideline it.

There will be hell to pay if the inquiry, first scheduled one week ago, is shelved – for whatever reason.

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For Msgr. Cruz, the Senate hearing is his target. He and his witnesses, although summoned to a Department of Justice hearing, see the Senate as their best hope: It is there where their allegations will receive nationwide media coverage. They may get some senators involved in their anti-jueteng campaign.

The Catholic hierarchy, silent almost to a man on the numbers game, should rally behind Msgr. Cruz, not because he seems to be close to victory, but because of his courageous stand, ignoring death threats while trashing big bank checks sent to him by persons suspected to be jueteng lords out to compromise him.

These sneaky tactics will not work. In the public estimate, the monsignor can do no wrong.

Having testified earlier before the senators, he returns next Monday bringing with him witnesses ready to unload blockbusters.

Not to be outdone, Senator Lacson’s witnesses will fire their own bombshells. The grapevine says it’s not only words. There may be documents.