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[av_heading heading=’Jueteng – a corrupt and corrupting illegal numbers game’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY OSCAR CRUZ
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Thursday, January 19, 2017
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TIME and again, here and there, then and now, jueteng continues to be a downright anti-social activity that fools the poor in particular and that enriches its hierarchical machinery – particularly the jueteng lord who is the big boss on top of the voracious numbers game.
So it is that from top to bottom, it has a common and well-organized gambling structure that continuously rakes in the money of its already impoverished bettors while blissfully still enriching more its already rich shameless capitalists – Jueteng Lord. Caja. Pagadores. Revisadores. Cabo. Cobradores. At their foot stools are the bettors.
The above common hierarchical gambling structure of jueteng can still have its likewise hierarchical territorial coverage – Region. Province. Towns or Municipalities. Barangays. So it is that jueteng has a built-in hierarchy not only in terms of personal roles but also in the matter of territorial coverages. To say that this long since standing territorial factor is much favorable to the stability and spread of jueteng plus its eventually acquire “Touch Me Not” feature on the part of a big number of police authorities, is a downright understatement.
Furthermore, in these times and circumstances, the following factors are the glaring realities that constitute the supposedly clean and quasi-legal and even innocent Jueteng industry in the Philippines:
* First, there is the truth that the illegal numbers game of jueteng has slowly but surely acquired a semblance of legality on account of the then adopted and now customary several “Small Time” lottery gambling forms.
* Second, there is also the fact that jueteng was not only silently allowed but actually a well-favored illegal numbers’ game during the previous administrations for reasons that were not really secret or unknown.
* Third, there is the reality that the country has slowly but surely become a place of welcoming and harboring even foreign gamblers through the establishment and operation of some 35 downright gambling corporations. All these factors are likewise favorable to the spread and stability of the Philippine jueteng industry.
What for are all the above-tired and tiresome series of observations? Why continue to call attention to an obvious wrongdoing yet seemingly right if not promoted even – especially on the part of those then in tenure of high public offices for six very long years?
Reasons: The present administration, more specifically the incumbent holder of the highest office public office in the land, appears to be quite serious in his continuous effort to get rid of graft and corrupt practices not only in the government but also in the country as a whole. And gambling, illegal gambling in particular, seems to be one of his considered target to do away with, to get rid of.
In fact, it has started with his firm resolve to clean the country of the infamous “online gambling.” Now with jueteng being nothing less than a truly corrupt and seriously corrupting illegal numbers’ game, it stands to reason that he would not tolerate the continued existence and practice of such a corruption incarnate that still robs the already poor bettors and in fact even rendering them poorer – while enriching the already supra-rich Gambling Lords.
It is said that “Hope springs eternal.” Hence, there is still hope that the scourge of jueteng in the country could still be done away with from the gambling lords down to the cobradores. Illegal drugs and illegal gambling are big enemies of the people. Would the present government want to be their friend?/PN
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