Jueteng illusions

The Presidential declaration of an "all-out war," sometimes called a "mailed-fist policy," against jueteng and all forms of illegal gambling is commendable. The Catholic Church’s renewed call to Filipinos to forsake illegal gambling is commendable.

Those congressional investigations, by two Senate committees and two House committees, are all commendable. One Senate committee and another one in the House are looking into allegations of numerous government officials who are either gambling lords themselves or are receiving payoffs from gambling lords. A separate Senate committee and yet another committee in the House are considering bills filed by legislators to legalize jueteng.

All these inquiries will reportedly be conducted on a simultaneous, as opposed to joint, basis. This means we will be seeing four, count ‘em, four congressional committees jostling for newspaper space and air time. Media will obviously be kept very busy and whole pages of our broadsheets and loads of news broadcast and TV talk show time will be set aside for jueteng. This will be a "top story" for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, the Department of Justice is conducting its own equally commendable probe. Anyone who has had anything to say about jueteng, from Catholic bishops to B1, B2 and who knows how many more B’s or so far unnamed secret witnesses there are, is being summoned by the DOJ. The Department is trying to determine whether any of the published allegations is backed up by hard evidence or is merely second-hand hearsay or, worse, pure tsismis.

The Philippine National Police is doing its own thing, sacking police chiefs who coddle jueteng in their jurisdictions under a so-called "one-strike" policy, meaning one instance of coddling is enough to can an ineffectual top local cop. The PNP is also getting off its duff, so to speak, and has arrested over 5,000 cobradores, revisadores and various other participants in the illegal gambling activity. Oh, by the way, the PNP also made the earth-shaking revelation that three, note that please, three regions in the country are now, wonder of wonders, "jueteng-free."

Where do you think, dear readers, all this sound and fury is taking us? Well, let’s take a closer look. My theory, which will not entirely surprise you, is that when all the hullabaloo has died down somewhat, we will remain exactly where we are. Jueteng, I fearlessly predict, will not be legalized. Neither will it be eradicated, however.

After a few hapless collectors and cabos are thrown into the clinker, yet another PNP revamp perpetrated in the name of fighting jueteng, a few senators and congressmen given their moment in time in full TV coverages of congressional hearings and privilege speeches, jueteng will get back to business, none the worse except for a little wear and tear. And, oh yeah, with all the public attention focused on Luzon, in the Visayas "endings," Pick 2 or 3 and masiao never skipped a beat.

Am I overly pessimistic? Am I wrong? Believe me, I would love to be proved to have been in grievous error. But I doubt it’ll happen.

To begin with, with apologies to Catholic bishops and evangelical leaders who have spoken out so forcefully against illegal gambling, I do not think our society has quite made up its mind about gambling as a moral issue. While the evils of gambling make for good subjects for homilies, biblical exhortations or political speeches, the stark reality is that some forms of gambling are legal in this country.

We have legal horse racing, legal cockfighting, legal sweepstakes and legal casino gambling. On the side, people gamble on results of college and professional basketball games and boxing matches. Golfing buddies make side-bets all the time, the amounts of which cannot always be dismissed as "friendly." Housewives and retirees play mahjong several times a week and occasionally you hear about someone losing a car or a house in the process. People bet on the results of "American Idol" and on whom the Sacred College of Cardinals would elect as the new Pope.

Okay, the examples can range from the sublime to the ridiculous, but the point is that whatever the public postures of people are on the subject, the truth is that there is no universal condemnation of gambling as an unqualified evil.

Let me stress that, personally, I am a confirmed non-gambler. I don’t play the horses, I am a functional illiterate on the vaunted joys of the cockpit, and I consider mahjong a pointless squandering of valuable time. (Uh-oh, some of my closest relatives and best friends are gonna get me for this confession.) I acknowledge playing some slot machines whenever I venture into a casino – a rare occasion, indeed – but my loss limit is embarrassingly niggardly.

However, I do not begrudge those who love the thrill of taking chances and even tempting fate. Some of them claim to revel in the professional and technical aspects of whatever sport they’re into, whether it’s the finer points of equine breeding or game-fowl development, or even the mathematical aspects of poker or blackjack. But I doubt that the moral issues behind "gambling" as a broad and general notion make too much impact on such people.

Then there’s the familiar argument that legal gambling benefits so many people. For instance, the charitable works of both the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and Pagcor cannot plausibly be denied. Why, even the Catholic Church has admitted being the beneficiary of the largesse of legal gaming. It’s a little less clear whether religious organizations have profited from jueteng or other illegal gambling.

But since even Mafia dons are known supporters of local parishes in Italy, as well as in New York, New Jersey, Chicago and San Francisco, I wouldn’t be surprised. Some parish priests can truthfully say they couldn’t possibly have known that the munificence of some parishioners had murky origins.

Or is it perhaps the official corruption that often attends jueteng and other forms of gambling that offends the moral senses? And what about that familiar argument that jueteng has been the economic lifeline of thousands of people that would be otherwise impoverished? We’ll need another column to get into that.