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By Nora O. Gamolo, Senior Desk Editor
Philippine society and government have been
involved in anti-gambling campaigns from as far back as can be
remembered. Advertorials have consistently been seen on television
and heard over the radio. Slogans were even devised against
gambling, and children parroted these in school and community
assemblies mandated during the Marcos years.
The Catholic Church has been blamed for the
proliferation of gambling, since during the Spanish occupation,
cockfighting and other forms were even promoted to generate revenue
for church projects. To date, however, the Catholic Bishops’
Conference of the Philippines is among the most vehement foes of
gambling.
One of the most celebrated Church-related
anti-gambling actions is the suit filed against the alleged Central
Luzon-based jueteng lord and Arroyo crony Bong Pineda by Pampanga
Gov. Ed Panlilio. A priest and former executive director of the
Social Action Center of Pampanga (it supervised relief and
rehabilitation operations in the province after the 1991 Mount
Pinatubo eruption), “Among” Ed has the immense support of the
people—except in those in areas where local government officials
and allies of President Arroyo, whose gubernatorial candidate he
defeated, are the most vociferous against him.
One such Panlilio enemy is Mayor Jerry Pelayo of
Candaba.
One could be led to believe that practically the
entire nation is up in arms against illegal gambling. But why are
the efforts to suppress jueteng and other forms of it all failures?
The simple answer is not only that local people
in power—from governors and mayors to policemen and barangay
officials—are involved. Another answer is that it provides for the
pressing needs of many people to have an income. It is the
country’s poor who regularly patronize jueteng and masiao draws.
In fact, many small-time gamblers do so without
any sense of guilt or greed, only a sense of need.
For sure, the myriad forms of gambling in the
country have been supported by corrupt people in government. In the
past, the military and police establishment were the ones who
provided protection for these nefarious pursuits. Now that the
police have been decentralized under the local government officials,
the protection syndicates have simply expanded, and new loci of
control have been formed in many areas.
These protectors might even have more or less
coordination among themselves, depending on the geopolitics. And
these syndicates are well-represented in government. This partly
explains their staying power.
Unless these protection rackets are broken, and
the government implements stringent measures to break their
backbone, one is assured of continued gambling operations.
The only problem is that the source of
protection—today, rumors say, as in the time of President
Estrada—is of Cabinet level.
It is, however, the people, not the powerful and
influential illegal protection syndicates, that provide the fodder
that feeds any kind of gambling operation.
Candaba Mayor Jerry Pelayo, formerly head of
Pampanga’s Municipal Mayor’s League, expressed it more
succinctly when he appealed during a series of anti-jueteng
campaigns in Pampanga several years ago. He said that the crackdown
should stop because people, especially his constituents, were losing
their livelihood and were living in fear of starving and
destitution.
Pelayo is known to be one of the thorns on
Governor Panlilio’s side, having raised various issues, including
both political and legal ones, against him. He is also known to be
one of those closest to the Pinedas and the President herself.
The mayor has a solid point, though. In a
strongly agriculture-based economy, people do not earn income for
long periods of time. Cash to buy farm inputs is borrowed from
usurers. The farmer is in debt even before he is sure that his crop
won’t be ruined by pests or bad weather. Until a farmer harvests
his crop, he earns no income.
In a vegetable-producing region like Central
Luzon, where Panlilio’s Pampanga is, farmers earn income only
every three months and they earn only if torrential rains spared
their farms. In rain-fed rice-farming systems and in the sugar
haciendas of Negros and Panay, income can be had only after six to
eight months.
In these situations, farmers gamble because
their winnings become potential income for them and their families.
It is also a way of retiring debts that multiply geometrically over
time.
The situation is worse in areas where there are
no more farms to speak of, either because they have been converted
into non-agricultural uses—resorts, subdivisions and industrial
parks.
In these areas, it will not be surprising if
jueteng and other forms of gambling become the de facto primary
industry.
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