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Thursday, April 06, 2006
Editorial: Laundering jueteng
SO, IS THE small-town lottery (STL) now a foregone conclusion, a fait accompli?
Looks that way, if you go by the seemingly well-oiled but discreet testing-the-waters strategy being employed by still unseen hands on the coming legalized cousin of jueteng.
Of course, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) says it would be calling the shots all throughout and not anybody else - have no fear please - if and when the small-town lottery is finally implemented.
Initially, so the line goes, the legal lottery will be held only in selected parts of the country, the better, it is said, to really fine-tune the government project and adapt it to the obtaining clime and moods in the countryside before it is ever operated nationwide.
STL is billed as the solution to the eradication of jueteng, the last nail to be driven on the illegal numbers game's coffin, so to speak.
Fine.
Still the apprehension of many "conditional supporters" to the introduction of STL cannot easily go away. Already, we hear that regional (as in "Northern Luzon," "Southern Luzon," Bicol, etc) overlords are in place and it looks and smells very much like the old jueteng gang.
No operator in the localities can move without their blessing and the "bid price" for just such a privilege of being a coordinator or perhaps table operator runs to millions, one interested would-be "bidder" rued to some friends last week. Oh, yes, there's supposed to be an overall operator for a province and another one for each chartered city like Dagupan.
They're just too wary about openly moving into Pangasinan at this time because someone named Oscar V. Cruz, archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan stands immaculately in the way, ready to issue another stinging pastoral to the flock. Oh, the STL operators would probably just wait for him to retire from the archdiocese before going all out with their game here.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Will gambling in the patronizing hand of government be less of the evil that jueteng ever was? STL may not be another head of the dreaded hydra but what if it turns out to be an entirely new hydra itself?
Well, you can always say, "We've been had!"
(April 6, 2006 issue)
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