Anti-jueteng twist: PNP blames PCSO

The National Police has asked the Charity Sweepstakes to ditch the EZ-2 lotto play because it looks so much like jueteng. But of course it does. Lotto officials devised the two-number draw last year precisely to compete with the century-old illegal numbers game. Its success may be limited, but that’s no argument for scrapping. Like other lotto variations, EZ-2 cashes in on Filipino penchant for gambling, only this time to fund state services like police work and to benefit charities instead of vice lords.

Jueteng consists of picking the right two numbers from 1 to 37 to win 400 times one’s bet. EZ-2 offers better odds, only 1 to 31, for the same prize. Other disparities tilt in jueteng’s favor. EZ-2 accepts only P10-bets for P4,000 winnings; jueteng allows as low as P1 for P400. EZ-2 plays nationwide but only nightly; jueteng caters to a barrio thrice a day. Although EZ-2 draws are televised, bettors must ride to lotto stations at the poblacion to place bets or collect winnings; in jueteng, a neighborhood cobrador makes the rounds to gather bets and pay winners. The price and ease of betting, and the scope and frequency of draws explain jueteng’s continued trampling of EZ-2.

The resurgence of jueteng, after a three-week lull in June at the start of a Senate inquiry, has rattled the police; hence, their gripe against lotto. A one-strike rule, in which field commanders are sacked once a task force detects illegal numbers games in their locales, has decimated them. Thirteen regional, provincial and city chiefs have been relieved so far. More are likely to go, as Camp Crame breathes harder down their necks to feign grit in the fight against organized vice – and take the heat off Malacañang, which is being accused of protection payolas. But it’s a futile campaign for the police alone. Past administrations had launched similar drives to stamp out jueteng, all for naught. This is the fourth such offensive under as many National Police directors-general under the Arroyo tenure. It won’t be the last, as future Presidents rise with election promises to lick jueteng, only to fail. That is, until the government once and for all lays down a policy and coordinates its agencies to co-opt jueteng.

The task must begin with understanding the game. Jueteng took root in Luzon in the 1800s, introduced by the Chinese and thriving alongside occasional charity draws. History is hazy about the difference between the official and the surreptitious. But at least two accounts link our heroes to lotto or jueteng. Jose Rizal was said to have won big cash in one draw, and used it for medical missions while in exile in Dapitan. A Tondo neighbor of Emilio Jacinto also reportedly won another draw, and donated part of the winnings to buy a press that the Katipunan used to print the first and only issue of its Kalayaan organ. Spanish friars had frowned on jueteng as a vice, therefore a sin, and sicced the authorities on operators. American rulers banned the game in the early 1900s. Old Supreme Court records include instances of jueteng lords’ convictions being affirmed or reversed. Despite harsher laws under successive Republic congresses, the game spread from Manila to other parts of Luzon. Under Marcos martial rule, decrees were issued and the Constabulary assaulted the draw dens. Yet jueteng survived to become a network of over 120,000 cobradors, cabos and financiers today and close to two million daily bettors.

With such a huge number of plain folk dependent on the vice for a living, the police alone can never win. Incessant strikes against jueteng men will only fill up the jails. The police has always been lazy with statistics. But it will find out that theft and robbery incidents rise with every crackdown on gambling. Jueteng operators and their employees simply know no other work than vice.

Jueteng is not unique to the Philippines. The advanced countries of Europe and North America, and the backward ones of Africa and South America have had to deal with variations of illegal numbers games. Al Capone enriched himself in Chicago through bookmaking, that is, running games of chance. Gangsters in other lands operated the same way. Governments licked them partly through other laws; the FBI nailed Capone on tax evasion. Invariably, their success can be traced to their designing of government-sanctioned alternatives, such as lotto.

For the PNP to rile against lotto is to bark up the wrong tree. But that is because the government is depending on the police alone to beat jueteng, when it should be following the lead of other lands. To be sure, the Estrada administration found a way to flush out jueteng operators. Through Pagcor, it devised Bingo 2-Balls as an alternative to the untaxed draws. Financiers were co-opted by awarding them the local franchises to operate thrice-daily jueteng-type draws under government supervision. In the two weeks that Bingo 2-Balls ran, jueteng disappeared completely and government earned millions of pesos.

There was a hitch in this experiment, though. Unofficially, part of the earnings of a private firm that would operate the game was to go to Joseph Estrada, to compensate for the loss of jueteng payola. Exposés of this and quarrels among jueteng operators over local Bingo 2-Ball franchises led to his impeachment. It was no different from the failure of the Small Town Lottery under the Aquino administration due to fights between old jueteng bosses and new local officials over operating licenses.

Devoid of greed of high officials, however, the government can still co-opt jueteng. The new element it has to introduce in any legal alternative is enshrined in the Constitution: transparency. With open books, it must empower the Charity Sweepstakes to offer more play stations, lower bet prices, and frequent local draws.

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