Glace,
It is not only Erap who said these words that "legalizing jueteng helps to address poverty in our country". It was spoken also by Ex-pres. Fidel Ramos. But Ramos's mistake was he did not legalize jueteng instead gave Manuel Morato of PCSO a free hand to introduce another number game called "lotto" to combat jueteng believing that the poor will welcome this new number game as an alternative to jueteng and those gambling lords will just fade away. Ramos was wrong! Morato's lotto did not reach to the expectation of the poor. The poor are still there patronizing jueteng... and the gambling lords? They are bolder than ever in their operation of the illegal games. Today it's not only town mayors and police chiefs who are recepients of grease money from gambling lords but barangay leaders are already included in their list and there are efforts to bribe parish priests to silence them during the Sunday's mass.
Reply:
WN
A legalized gambling (jueteng or lotto) cannot eradicate an operation of illegal gambling in the Philippines. Why? Illegal gambling is more profitable. And operators and financiers know our government which plans to legalize their operations is only after of its money, not service. And that is the case; so, there's no way it can help address the more serious issue on poverty in our country, let alone solve it. How can legalized jueteng help...when it can't even HELP eliminate illegal gambling, and you expect its going to work against the chronic poverty in our country? Legalizing one would only solve the illegality of it, but not the purpose to which it is intended, as claimed by honey-lipped politicians. Ramos and Moratos' failure should have taught hard lesson to the next proponents of legalizing gambling like jueteng. Illegal operators of gambling doesn't go away. You legalize one, and you see more illegal ones popping up. It's an endless cycle which legalized gambling cannot break. This is a fact which Bohol Police Director SSupt. Edgardo Ingking shared, with his wisdom and experience, regarding the plan to introduce STL in Bohol. He said "I don't honestly believe STL will help eliminate the existing illegal numbers game such as 'swertres', instead this will only worsen illegal gambling. Illegal gambling financiers and operators would only exploit the legalized STL to device an illegal version." So does legalizing jueteng help to address poverty in OUR COUNTRY? Absolutely NO!
Anybody other than Erap or Ramos saying that "legalizing jueteng helps to address the problem of poverty in our country is correct". In my opinion Ramos or Erap are only incidental people and please bear in mind what they mean by their words; "it only helps to address and not the main solution of eradicating poverty in our country". Jueteng taxes alone, [granting jueteng is legal] cannot singlehandedly arrest the problem of poverty but I believe there are other solutions whether it be economic or political.
Reply:
The correctness of this idea may be in everyone's mind, but it doesn't make legalized gambling like jueteng the RIGHT solution to help eradicate OUR poverty. The truth is they want to legalize it because they have no balls to eliminate it. They have no balls because they can't live without it. It's all about Money. But if we only have better leadership in our polity to run our economy, our resources, forces and the pride of our hardworking people, there's absolutely no need to worry illegal gambling because the law and order in our police force would be enough to tackle the problem. Sadly, we don't have the dreamed leadership and the police are drained of credibility and power.
To legalize gambling, which in this country has been proven to be impotent to eliminate illegal gambling and its inherent negative impact to the poor, in order help solve poverty is like allowing yourself to be checked by a physician, eventhough you know you need a pyschiatrist. You're trying to help eliminate a target (poverty), yet you're using a toy gun (legal jueteng). You said, " i believe there are other solutions whether it be economic or political"; yes, indeed, there are, and that's what we need, among other things, like strengthening the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the gov/t; the elimination of culture of corruption; sincere governance, etc. But absolutely NOT to legalize gambling like jueteng. Not here. Not Now.
Let us admit this... gambling is unpreventable and this is the reason why in a not so distant past some countries solved the problem of gambling by legalizing them. Take the state of Nevada for instance... what is this land before? It's a desert... but when the government legalized gambling to help build schools and gave jobs to the poor the state improved its economy. The Mafia came out of the open and made compensation to their workers legal and reasonable. Macau near Hongkong... before it was only a fishing village and most of their people look for good jobs outside especially in the Philippines operating restaurant. In Macau most of their revenues come from the casinos. The church and casino complex are standing side by side and there are no conflict with the two. In Australia there are casinos which have imprimatur from the Catholic heirarchy of Australia that is why the club is called Catholic Club. Once you enter the lobby of this club you can see the pictures of the cardinal and the bishop of Sydney.
Reply:
WN
You have to realize this is no NEVADA. Realize also they legalized gambling in 1931 not to eliminate poverty. Nevada State, while the rest of USA were pummelled by the hardships of the Great Depression, was virtually insulated from it because jobs and money were prevalent because of Union Pacific Railroad development and construction of Hoover Dam 34 miles away in Black Canyon on the Colorado River. Later on, Las Vegas with an already prodigious potential for business, entertainment and marketing investments would be transformed into what it is today. Not only that, the Nevada state has had the effeciency to collect tax revenues second to none, that even mobsters couldn't run away from paying their obligations. And it used the money for their public interest. Do we have that effeciency here TODAY? NONE!!! Your BIR, the tax collector, is on the top five list of the most corrupt agancies in the government. Behind DPWH, PNP and DA. There you have it--the arms of our government (PNP and BIR) which are supposed to chase down illegal activities of gambling are not fit even just to wear their nametags. And now you want us to trust our poor people's hope to that idea that legalizing jueteng will help their impoverished condition? From the mouth of unscropulous politicians like Erap Estrada? Absolutely no way. How you wish that the magic wand of legal gambling like jueteng could turn everything into gold like NEVADA; sorry, because it will just appropriately turn us into WAYNADA instead (no pun intended).
The same case can be construed about Casino in Macau and the fabled Catholic Club in Austalia. No comparison. We are not at par with those countries in this area. It is not a simple case that because it works in their system, it will work in ours too. Far from it, considering the status quo of our politics and rampant corruption. I can't imagine, if the lottery system in Canada was even rigged with fraud, as recently discovered, what would it be like in our present system? Yet, all these people are singing is to legalize jueteng to help the poor in a system rigged with rich corrupt officials. Legalization of gambling like jueteng would just be another puddle for corruption. Look who will greatly benefit from it? Not the poor, definitely.
If you think that 80% of the Filipinos are occupying the lowest part of the poverty line or pyramid as you say... it is not because of gambling. But because of the poor economy of our country. The poor are being push more to the ground because their vulnerability is being exploited by the illegal gambling lords... but once illegal gambling are eradicated I believe it will help the level playing field of the poor. If it will happen the once illegal gambling lords will become legal and we can see them in the open and they will pay their taxes and coruption will be minimized. When jueteng is legalized it is favorable to the poor who directly engaged in the illegal gambling games because their jobs as cabo, runnners, or collectors will be legalized also and they will have hope for their children in the future.
Reply:
Yes, the chronic poverty of our country is not because of gambling. But it is casued by the poor and flawed management of our economy. Poor economy is the outcome of it. We make ourselves poor by greed, self-interest and lacking in disiciple with our national leaders in the front. We are used to be second behind Japan in terms of economy. Now, we are left in the dust from other Asian countries jumping off their economies to quantum leaps.
Legalized jueteng proponents need reality check. Jueteng gets its revenue mostly from the poor section of our society, for which legalized jueteng is allegedly, hopefully and Godwillingly intended to help. If legalization happens, this is going to be the scenario in our country's legal jueteng: the poor Juan helps Jueteng gets the money to help the poor--who happens to be Juan himself. Nonsense. Where and how could a blind lead another blind; poor to another poor? It's a path to nowhere future. The poor continues to be squeezed down to the last drop; and the crocs so alive and well.
Glacier said;
"On the other hand, we all are aware that illegal jueteng would only favor more to the financers and their protectors (police, politicians and the military). aside from that, its evil, both necessary and unnecessary, is just sending more poor people to the bottom of indigence and destitution. i can't argue with that. I trust you know better than i do."
Answer:
This is the reason why I am arguing to legalize jueteng. Just take away Erap from your mind so that you can accept that legalizing jueteng is one way to address the poverty problem. Daghan dinhi sa TB nga gihimong kinaingnan si Erap. Busa tangtanga sa si Erap sa inyong huna-huna. Hehehe....
Reply:
Illegal jueteng is bad; legal jueteng is no better. That's my point.
Erap is a fixture of man wanting popularity because he thinks he is right. Like you. So he can't be removed, unless this country is nil of this type of people. I don't know how many people be left in this country if we do the process of elimination; but for sure you will be among the first. hahahaha.
secondly, we can't take away Erap, because he "started" this thread. And he is running for president. And he has an ardent follower here in TB, and you would be so alone if we stop thinking about him, wouldn't you? hahaha
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