Good luck with that SHE SAYS Dinah S. Ventura 09/20/2010

Good luck with that

SHE SAYS

Dinah S. Ventura

09/20/2010
How tempting it must be to stop all efforts of stamping out the illegal numbers game called jueteng. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em! After all, some local officials have revealed that they are using jueteng payoffs to fund local disbursements like funerals, baptisms, hospitalization and the like.

Erap, or former President Joseph Estrada, has said as much. He believes jueteng should be legalized so that government can use earnings from it to fund key projects. Where the Small Town Lottery (STL) has failed, a legalized jueteng can work. But can it really?

Now that jueteng has crept into the picture to darken President Noynoy’s door, people are wondering if something as insidious and entrenched can ever be conquered even by someone whose candidacy rode on a squeaky clean image.

It all began when Retired Lingayen Archbishop Oscar Cruz said a couple of officials in the Aquino administration were receiving monthly payoffs from the jueteng operators. Asked about this by media, the President’s remark — to the effect that the rumored P2 million a month payoff per official was too cheap — was taken in different ways.... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20100920com7.html