Bingo Combo is bad no matter how you cut it

THE ANNOUNCEMENT last week by anti-jueteng crusader Archbishop Oscar Cruz that the Arroyo administration is planning to replace the illegal jueteng numbers game with a legal version called Bingo Combo by Sept. 15, is an indication of just how tight a grip gambling has on Filipinos.

That the new game is going to be run by the government¹s Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) does not change the fact that it is still gambling, which is inherently unfair to those who indulge in it.

As many have already pointed out, Bingo Combo will still exploit the poor by giving 20 percent of the income generated from it to Pagcor and 80 percent to the operators of the game. As in jueteng, players will be allowed to bet on any two numbers between 1 and 38, with an official minimum bet of P10, but with instructions for operators to accept bets between P1 to P9.

It is clear that current gambling lords will be the main beneficiaries of this legalized jueteng as they will most likely
be appointed operators of Bingo Combo. The only difference is that players and operators will not be subject to arrest, as they were in the past, as now the government will be taking its 20 percent cut.

This should not ease the conscience of anyone involved in Bingo Combo. I don¹t care if Pagcor uses a large portion of its profits to fund scholarships or to help poor children. The fact remains that money gained from gambling is still dirty money, money that cannot be washed clean no matter how many hoops the government tries to jump through.

The fact remains that gambling is an addiction, and the odds of a gambler winning big are statistically stacked against him no matter how you look at it. Of course, in jueteng they always make sure that enough gamblers across the country continue winning small amounts of money on a weekly basis in order to keep them coming back for more. But is also a fact that the operators will always be the winners, cynically cashing in on the dreams of impoverished and desperate Filipinos hoping to win big.

I have known countless Filipinos here in Saudi Arabia who have gambled away up to a third of their monthly wages on the Thai lottery, another illegal numbers gambling game. Some have bet even more of their monthly wages, and when they lose everything are unable to send money home and are forced to borrow money from loan sharks, charging exorbitant interest rates, just to survive.

Certainly they've won a few times too. Five hundred riyals here, three hundred riyals there. But that's peanuts compared to what they¹ve gambled over the course of just a few months, leaving the operators of the Thai lottery laughing all the way to the bank. No government should be in the business of running gambling operations. The Philippine government should ban all gambling outright and close down jueteng and Pagcor immediately. Gambling just exploits the hopes and ignorance of the poor, while further enriching those who are already rich. Where¹s the justice in that?

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President Arroyo's trip to Saudi Arabia

PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia from Sept. 10-12. She will be meeting the newly crowned King Abdullah, who just assumed the throne on Aug. 1 following the death of King Fahd.
On her agenda, according to Philippine Ambassador to the Kingdom Bahnarim Guinomla will be the three "O": OFWs, oil and the OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference.)

"We're not sure yet whether the king will receive her in Jeddah or Riyadh, but we're trying to work in an Eastern Province leg to her trip to include a visit to Aramco," said Guinomla in a phone interview from Riyadh.
With soaring oil prices, President Arroyo is going to be asking the Kingdom to provide oil to developing countries, including the Philippines, at a preferential price. It remains to be seen whether Saudi Arabia will be responsive to this request.

On the OIC front, the president will once again push for the Philippines to be made a permanent member of that organization, in view of the fact of its large Muslim population in Mindanao and the ongoing conflict there that the OIC has been helping to mediate for decades now. The Philippines currently has observer status at the OIC, and since it is a majority Catholic nation, it is unlikely in my opinion to ever be admitted as a permanent member.

Finally, on the OFW front, Ambassador Guinomla told me that a great number of Filipinos imprisoned for lesser crimes have been repatriated since King Abdullah's accession to the throne.

"The king has been very generous in granting amnesty to many Filipino prisoners, especially those accused of petty crimes," said Guinomla. "The number of Filipinos being repatriated in the past few weeks has increased significantly."

Whether a politically beleaguered Arroyo will try and use this trip to drum up support among the estimated 900,000 OFWs and their family members who live in the Kingdom remains to be seen.

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