Vice-presidential candidate Senate President Tito C. Sotto III said government efforts to locate the 31 missing online cockfight enthusiasts would continue after President Duterte agreed to suspend the licenses of seven electronic sabong firms that might be connected to the case.

At a public forum held Monday at the St. Anne College Lucena, Inc., Sotto told Quezon Province councilors—who are equally concerned about the effects of online sabong on their families and the youth—that the Senate would exhaust all possible means until they get to the bottom of the issue.

“Nakita niyo ‘yung sama ng takbo ng (kaso), ano, malupit e. ‘Yung mga taong nasa likod niyan, malupit. (You saw how bad this has been running—it’s tough. The people behind this are cruel),” Sotto said.

Based on what they gathered during their first hearing on the matter Thursday last week, Sotto said there might be more than 31 individuals that need to be accounted for, including a driver and a 14-year-old sibling of one of the victims who also disappeared.

‘’The number of those who were reported missing is 31 at the moment, but we are told by the PNP (Philippine National Police) there might be more than 31 who are lost. Now, we will have another hearing for it this Friday,’’ he added,

Sotto already filed a resolution for the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) to suspend the licenses of seven e-sabong firms that are involved in the case, which Partido Reporma presidential candidate and fellow Senator Ping Lacson seconded.

Senator Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs, which has been leading the investigation on the abduction case said PAGCOR has referred it to President Duterte, who agreed to cancel the operations of the implicated e-sabong firms.

‘’According to President Duterte, he is allowing the suspension of the licenses of the e-sabong firms... So, by Friday, they are all suspended—the seven licensed (companies,’’ Sotto said quoting dela Rosa.

Partido Reporma senatorial candidate and former PNP Chief Guillermo Eleazar, who joined the Lacson-Sotto team during their campaign sortie in his home province, welcomed these developments. He also called for the strengthening of the PNP to intensify its efforts towards crime solving.

‘’In events like this, we need to solve the case, especially in regards to the abduction of the 31 online cockfight enthusiasts. And so, to me—and we have experienced it—we saw that in the PNP, we can only do so much,’’ he said

‘’Because we need to strengthen the capability of our PNP. We actually don’t have yet what we call as capability enhancement program where we can have a modern and state-of-the-art technology to help us improve our investigation skills,’’he added.

Eleazar was referring, for example, to the possibility of installing an interconnected closed-circuit television (CCTV) system that policemen can monitor thoroughly, which he said could accelerate the progress of crime scene investigations in the country.