Killing jueteng

Three secretaries of the interior, three different approaches to jueteng.

Jose Lina gave himself a one-year deadline to stamp out jueteng and waged a high-profile campaign to eradicate the illegal numbers game, vowing to step down if he failed. He explained to me back then that the hugely popular game was a major source of corruption.

Lina did not meet his deadline but he did not step down. He did manage to push for the passage of legislation imposing stiffer penalties for illegal gambling.

He was soon replaced anyway by Angelo Reyes, who took a more practical approach toward illegal gambling. Police raids would continue, Reyes promised. But did I realize, he asked me back then, how difficult it would be to stamp out a game that thrived on the bets of the masses, of grandparents and housewives? Where bet collectors included children and the gambling operation was often seen as a community enterprise?

Reyes was initially reluctant to expend too much police resources on stamping out jueteng. Ironically, the numbers game actually disappeared in many areas during his watch, as the jueteng scandal involving presidential relatives forced an end to the gambling protection rackets of cops, local government officials and military officers.

So it can be stopped, you say? As crusaders against jueteng will tell you, the game always comes creeping back as the heat subsides.

The new interior secretary, Ronaldo Puno, appears to be banking on a third tack: kill the illegal game with the legal, government-run version — the small-town lottery or STL.

We’ve already been told that the STL will not be run by the Department of the Interior and Local Government but by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, which also runs the equally popular lotto.

Local governments, however, will have to be consulted, at the very least, in the operation of any form of legal gambling at the grassroots. If the STL is the same as jueteng, it will be just as popular and will reap enormous profits. It would not be surprising if local governments demand a share of STL revenues.

STL, its proponents hope, will end the corruption bred by jueteng. It also means another vice legitimized by the government. But tackle one evil at a time.

There are people who will even dispute the description of gambling as evil. This is a major hurdle faced by crusaders against jueteng. From the looks of it, STL is a done deal.

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Ours is not the only country with an ambivalent policy toward gambling. Many other countries, unable to stop people from placing bets on any game of chance, also have state-run lotteries, casinos and sweepstakes.

Unlike the Philippines, however, many of these countries have a zero-tolerance policy toward illegal gambling. Public officials who run protection rackets are charged with corruption. Private individuals who manage to launder proceeds from illegal gambling find themselves behind bars for racketeering and tax evasion.

This is where we have failed. And it is not just failure of law enforcement. The political will is simply not there, especially since gambling money often finances election campaigns. If we finally pass laws on racketeering, certain lawmakers themselves might face criminal charges.

That revelation of Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former chief of the Philippine National Police, should give us a good picture of the illegal gambling situation.

As any police officer will tell you, Lacson was the rare cop who refused to accept money from jueteng lords.

Having spent his police career in the company of many others on the take, however, Lacson was prudent enough to keep his mouth shut. As any human rights advocate will tell you, Lacson the cop had his own dark side. Police officers never denounced him for what he once described to me as "neutralizing" the bad guys. Live and let live; to each his own vice.

Lacson, however, now says that he fell out of favor with Joseph Estrada because he had launched an honest-to-goodness campaign against jueteng when he became PNP chief.

Never one to mince words, Lacson told ANC the other day that he had waived the monthly P5-million jueteng payoff allegedly enjoyed by his predecessor in the PNP, Roberto Lastimoso.

Lacson also disclosed that jueteng money financed Estrada’s Muslim Youth Foundation. Estrada’s son Jinggoy, now Lacson’s colleague in the Senate, denied this yesterday and dared Lacson to prove it.

Estrada’s camp may say that Lacson has an ax to grind. It is said that when the opposition was looking for a common candidate to field against President Arroyo in the May 2004 race, Estrada had told Lacson point-blank that he could not pick the senator over Fernando Poe Jr., Erap’s close friend from his acting days.

Unfortunately for the Estrada camp, however, Lacson has credibility when it comes to the campaign against jueteng, whether or not he has an ax to grind.

The P5 million in fact seems like a modest amount for an industry that is supposed to reap billions a month.

A former interior secretary told me that upon his appointment, he was approached by emissaries of jueteng operators and offered a multimillion-peso monthly payola. He said he declined the offer.

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People must learn the value of hard work, perseverance and creativity. A nation cannot become strong when its people rely on get-rich-quick schemes to improve their status in life.

Pragmatic proponents of gambling, however, point out that many people turn to games of chance chiefly for fun. They also point out that there are people who are inveterate gamblers, who will place bets on the cycle of the tides or beetle races if there are no numbers games available. Gambling has even gone online.

Why not let the government earn money from such a popular form of entertainment?

To reduce opposition, some of the biggest beneficiaries of state-run gambling activities are Church charities.

The problem arises from the corruption that is bred by illegal gambling. If STL can end this corruption, the controversy will be worth it.

Don’t think though that the jueteng operators and their coddlers will give up their lucrative business without a fight.

If they can’t revive jueteng, we are bound to see another form of illegal numbers game cropping up. Unless the gambling barons are caught and punished – for tax evasion, racketeering, or whatever offense will put them away for at least a couple of years – we will see no end to illegal gambling and the corruption that it breeds.