Crime pays

A colleague recalls a conversation with a Laguna politician many years ago. The politician related that during his campaign for a local post, among his fund donors was a jueteng operator.

As in many aspects of life, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. The return on investment sought by the jueteng operator was control of all illegal gambling operations within the jurisdiction of the politician if he won. He did, and a jueteng kingpin was born.

This was way back in the early days of martial law, and the politician, who became a mayor, died several years ago. He died peacefully, and not in a hail of gunfire at a police-military “checkpoint.”

Jueteng has survived martial law, the restoration of democracy, and every Dirty Harry type assigned to head the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG).

The corruption and political patronage engendered by jueteng money have also survived, in much the same way as in the martial law years.

A DILG chief once told me, shortly after he assumed the post, that jueteng lords had sent him feelers, offering P10 million a month as protection money. He turned down the offer (he claimed).

Since those were only feelers, the DILG chief could not send a police checkpoint team to annihilate the shadowy figures that made the offer. But he did order the PNP to launch a crackdown on jueteng.

The order was carried out, and the operations stopped – briefly – as they always do when a new chief of the DILG or PNP is named or when a new police chief in a certain area assumes command. Players in the not-so-clandestine jueteng/masiao industry know well enough when it’s time to cool their heels.

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I chatted with the DILG chief at the height of that renewed campaign. He knew the limits of what he was doing, that jueteng operations would eventually resume after an all-too-brief hiatus.

The resumption, he told me, starts “kangaroo style” – with the game being carried out in vans and other large vehicles.

He sighed that the penalties at the time for illegal gambling, whether the violator was the financier or bet collector, were so light they were laughable: an average of a few months behind bars and a few thousand bucks in fines.

Before that guy ended his stint in the DILG, he managed to push for stiffer penalties for illegal gambling – several years behind bars and six-digit fines for the worst violators. But so far, I don’t remember those new penalties being imposed on any notorious jueteng lord.

And they are notorious. Many of the individuals identified as jueteng kingpins by watchdogs against illegal gambling have been known for decades now. Several were even investigated by Congress.

What happened to them? They’re still around, with some of them successfully entering politics themselves. After all, they generate the funds for distribution to voters during election campaigns.

As any bet collector will tell you, the jueteng lords provide employment. They know how to share some of the massive wealth from illegal gambling. They put food on the table in thousands – millions? – of households across the country. Everybody’s happy.

Gambling barons often build a reputation for generosity. Like politicians, they set aside funds for “KBL” or kasal, libing, binyag – weddings, burials and baptisms. They donate patrol cars and equipment to the police. They donate to the Catholic Church and to charities. They set aside large sums for “gifts” during Christmas, much like senators…

As certain police officials dared to admit several years ago, they accepted money from jueteng lords to finance legitimate police operations and maintain peace and order.

With that kind of goodwill developed down to the grassroots, it’s not farfetched for a jueteng lord to become not just a kingmaker but also to remake himself into the local political kingpin. Crime pays in this country.

Gambling barons can be nailed down for tax evasion. We can only guess why tax collectors haven’t done this. Maybe Kim Henares will set her sights on some of the notorious gambling lords, starting in Laguna, where a battle for control of jueteng operations is suspected to have triggered the incident that left 13 men dead in Atimonan, Quezon last Jan. 6.

Earlier reports said the principal target in the shooting incident, alleged jueteng lord Vic Siman, learned the ropes from Charing Magbuhos, long tagged as one of the top gambling barons in Southern Tagalog. After he struck out on his own, Siman reportedly incurred the ire of a rival jueteng operator, a woman called Tita who, if the grapevine is correct, raised a certain Hansel Marantan like her own child.

Marantan, now a police superintendent, reportedly headed the joint police-military contingent in the shooting incident. He has denied that his relatives are involved in jueteng. He has talked to the media but not to those investigating the shooting incident.

The other day, a former employee of Siman in his gambling operation was killed when he allegedly tried to shoot cops who were arresting him at his home.

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The former DILG chief told me that while he sensed the futility of periodic crackdowns on jueteng operations, he wanted to stop the corruption engendered by illegal gambling. As in many corrupt activities, deadly violence is another offshoot.

He himself would be hounded by ugly rumors that his brother was protecting jueteng operators in their province. But the former DILG chief left the post I think with his reputation relatively unsullied.

His stint did not put an end to jueteng. The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office is hoping the “Loterya ng Bayan” will kill the popular but illegal numbers game this year.

There are proposals to legalize jueteng to end the corruption. Even better, authorities can go after jueteng operators where it hurts. There’s a lot of wealth out there that must be explained to Kim Henares.

If Pinoys can’t be stopped from placing bets and lawmen and local officials refuse to stop jueteng, gambling operators can be stopped from enjoying ill-gotten wealth.

This won’t even require shooting anyone dead.