Morally sick

"Gambling can turn into a dangerous two-way street when you least expect it. Weird things happen suddenly, and your life can go all to pieces."
--Hunter S. Thompson

By Alex P. Vidal

NONE of our Ilonggo legislators were among the contenders for major posts when the administration lap puppies led by recently installed House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano divided the "kingdoms" of the House of Representatives the way the generals of Alexander the Great divided his kingdoms after his death.
Even in the scandalous "term-sharing" agreement, Cayetano and his fellow eager-beaver solons who desire power and positions in the Lower House like David desired Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, limited the choices for themselves alone.
Because they eat alone, time will come they will also fight alone.
For the meantime, even if they don't hold key positions in the hierarchy of the House of Representatives, the Ilonggo congresspeople, all age below 50, will see to it that they will abscond or avoid any membership in the committee on silence.
Let's watch them as they trail-blaze their way to quality legislation.

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If the gaming operations of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) weren't ordered temporarily suspended (only lotto has been restored as of this writing) recently, many of us wouldn't have been exposed as morally sick.
The suspension was treated by most gambling-crazed Filipinos as like a national tragedy; like they lost a prime property to a hurricane; or they weren't able to withdraw a single centavo before the rural bank, where they saved all their money, declared bankruptcy.
For some it was like a matter of life and death.
Give us gambling or give us death.
It exposed a grim reality that without organized gambling, many Filipinos can't go on with a normal life; they can't function effectively as normal social beings.
For some whose main livelihood and day-to-day existence are 100 percent reliant to the PCSO gaming schemes, it was like a sudden death from a thousand cuts.

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It demonstrated the fact that many Filipinos exist on a game of chance; that if the government or any higher authority will permanently clamp down on both legal and illegal gambling in the country, life will also abruptly end for many gamblers and gambling operators.
We teach our children the basic Christian virtues and the values of hard work, sacrifice, fair play, simple living; yet, many of us openly pay homage to gambling and treat it as a be-all and end-all of how to survive and exist in this world.
The situation becomes more alarming when public officials like Health Secretary Francisco Duque III go on a rampage if gambling operations are stopped.
“They have to be imaginative on where to get the funds. The PCSO funding is huge and can render anemic the capacity of the Malasakit centers to be able to maximize support to poor patients,” Duque said. “The shortfall must be filled.”
The likes of Duque believe that gambling, as the chief source of funds to help defray the expenses for social assistance, is omnipotent.

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We are glad that the name of the new Iloilo City grandstand now located in Muelle Loney, City Proper is now back as "Iloilo City Freedom Grandstand" by virtue of an executive order issued by Mayor Geronimo "Jerry" Treñas.
Many Ilonggos sobbed when Mayor Jose "Joe III" Espinosa III renamed it to "Iloilo City Dinagyang Grandstand" last year.
It added insult to the grandstand's injury after it was demolished and uprooted from its original territory on J.M. Basa Street in Aduana last year and transferred to its new location.
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo)

We can live without ‘lotto’ but not without gambling

“The world is like a reverse casino. In a casino, if you gamble long enough, you're certainly going to lose. But in the real world, where the only thing you're gambling is, say, your time or your embarrassment, then the more stuff you do, the more you give luck a chance to find you.”
--Scott Adams

By Alex P. Vidal

ONE of the most famous gambling icons in the Philippines is an Ilonggo businessman who owns several businesses in Iloilo, Negros, and Cebu.
Even before the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) was institutionalized, Filipinos were already agog over different types gambling, he once insisted.
“Gambling can become a form of genuine entertainment if professionalized and regulated,” quipped the Ilonggo businessmen, who helped build one of the most modern cockpit stadiums in Asia.
He will probably agree with us that with or without the gaming operations of the PCSO, Filipinos will continue to engage in gambling--in whatever means.
In fact, we can live without PCSO and “lotto”, but we can’t live without gambling, which has become one of our most favorite past times and vices since time immemorial.
PCSO operations, which have been ordered suspended by President Duterte, are limited to numbers game.
There are certain gambling activities in the Philippines that are more popular or “addictive” than others which even the broad social and economic theories failed to explain why.
Filipinos engage in gambling primarily for economic reasons.

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Most Pinoy gambling addicts always want a quick-fix solution to poverty; they believe that if they get luckier their basic economic needs will be answered; their financial woes will be given immediate solution.
From sabung or cockfighting, to card games and jueteng, Filipino gamblers don’t have holidays.
If they don’t have cash for gambling, they borrow and steal, if necessary.
Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde was only stating the obvious when he declared recently that he saw a possible resurgence of jueteng and other illegal numbers games now that the PCSO gaming operations have been halted.
Several surveys of gambling have shown that there are a broad range motivational factors that are central to gambling, and that attitudes towards gambling are positively related to availability and cultural acceptability.
Dr. Mark D. Griffiths of Psychology Today says variations in gambling preferences are thought to result from both differences in accessibility and motivation. Older people tend to choose activities that minimize the need for complex decision-making or concentration (e.g., bingo, slot machines), whereas gender differences have been attributed to a number of factors, including variations in sex-role socialization, cultural differences and theories of motivation.
Variations in motivation are also frequently observed among people who participate in the same gambling activity.
For example, Griffiths explains, slot machine players may gamble to win money, for enjoyment and excitement, to socialize and to escape negative feelings. Some people gamble for one reason only, whereas others gamble for a variety of reasons. A further complexity is that people's motivations for gambling have a strong temporal dimension; that is, they do not remain stable over time.

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As people progress from social to regular and finally to excessive gambling, there are often significant changes in their reasons for gambling.
Whereas a person might have initially gambled to obtain enjoyment, excitement and socialisation, the progression to problem gambling is almost always accompanied by an increased preoccupation with winning money and chasing losses, adds Griffiths.
“Gambling is clearly a multifaceted rather than unitary phenomenon. Consequently, many factors may come into play in various ways and at different levels of analysis (e.g., biological, social or psychological),” he emphasizes.
"Theories may be complementary rather than mutually exclusive, which suggests that limitations of individual theories might be overcome through the combination of ideas from different perspectives.
“This has often been discussed before in terms of recommendations for an eclectic approach to gambling or a distinction between proximal and distal influences upon gambling.
“However, for the most part, such discussions have been descriptive rather than analytical, and so far, few attempts have been made to explain why an adherence to singular perspectives is untenable.”
(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo).