Hands off the cookie jar

WHEN the Palace said that it would look into the word war at the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), we hoped that it would also probe the alleged maneuverings of Charlie “Atong” Ang to undermine the Small Town Lottery (STL) and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office itself. The STL has been one of government’s weapons against illegal gambling, primarily jueteng. And it has been effective, so far.

While cynics point out that STL and jueteng are both gambling, it should be stressed that the key difference is between legal and illegal. STL is legal, and its revenues go the government. The PCSO paid P7 billion in taxes from January to November 2017 that was generated by its operations that include STL. Jueteng, on the other hand, is illegal. As such, there is no accounting of the monies earned, and worse, the funds could be financing nefarious and illegal activities, such as organized crime and even terrorism. Of course, there is also graft and corruption and other ways of undermining our democracy. Because jueteng has been around for generations, many Filipinos dismiss it and other forms of illegal gambling as benign. But they do so without actually grasping the grave social, political and economic consequences.