Punchline
Karnabal-kasino
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
IF you chance upon a local karnabal in an open ricefield or an empty lot with an unmoving ferris wheel and one large peryahan table, don’t even believe for a moment that the barangay is celebrating its fiesta for a week.
What you are seeing is actually a barangay casino disguised as a karnabal operating year-round! And there are now about a hundred of these already operating in Pangasinan.
Every night, for the whole duration of the 366-day ‘fiesta’, there are no queues to the ferris wheel. Everyone in the community knows the junk is not even connected to any power source and the operator is nowhere near the rickety unsafe contraption. He is busy entertaining residents and out-of-towners who gather around the “Drop-Ball’ table for a chance to take home or lose at least P1,000! The ferris wheel is a prop for the uninitiated and the gullible!
What’s the come-one now for the once lowly perya game? The once-petty gambling table has come of age, separating the gamblers from the petty bettors. The bets on the tables are no longer P.025 –P1 bets. Not even P5-P10 coins but P100 bills and in some instances, P1,000 bills! Its best feature yet is one can bet to his heart’s delight without fear of being accosted or being the subject of entrapment by the police! It’s the only illegal game in town that is “legal” by the standards of the barangay chief, the police, and yes, the mayor!
One does not have to be a rocket scientist to know what’s in it for the shotgun-armed barangay chairman, the chief of police and the mayor nightly! No wonder the line to the bank teller is getting longer by the day.
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It seems, for the illegal gambling aficionados, jueteng is now going out of style and the tupada encounters are deemed too far and between.
Our sources say enterprising gamblers (among them politicos and high ranking police officers) are out to acquire more abandoned rusty machines from bankrupt owners of vintage amusement rides for deployment in the province. The investors need these as necessary props in many places in the province as props for the expansion of their karnabal-kasinos.
But here’s what takes the cake. For reasons known only to Smiley PD Barba, he and his town chiefs vigorously deny that there’s nothing illegal about the string of karnabal sites that have mushroomed in the province. The year-round karnabal operations are protected by barangay resolutions, the police claim.
Gee, if our police believe that a mere barangay resolution is enough to supersede a national law, then our benighted country is really doomed! And that makes PNP the biggest private armed group (PAG) in the country, protecting everything illegal.
Surely, Pangasinense Chief PNP Jess Verzosa can’t be happy with everyone knowing that PNP under his watch is protecting illegal gambling. Or doesn’t he care?
And where is Guv Spines in all these? He ought to start to kick some butts in uniform.
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THE WAR FOR ECONOMIC SURVIVAL. I’m not talking about a global war between nations. It’s about a war among political ward leaders.
But Guv Spines should thank his stars for now that he had the sense to direct Smiley PD Barba to gain custody of the shotguns distributed earlier to barangay kapitans. Heaven knows how many bullets would have already found their way embedded in some victims’ organs and limbs over senseless arguments on local politics.
And if the volume of posters and tarpaulins hanging by electric posts and trees and the number of posterers racing to plaster walls with pictures of their candidates are any gauge, the electoral contest is far from quiet and sober.
As we approach the homestretch, we see candidates beginning to unveil the dirty tricks they have kept under wraps meant to be unleashed for this time of the campaign. Incessant emotional, personal attacks against opponents are now taking over the noise daily created by a hundred and one campaign jingles played 24 hours by roving trompas. Most candidates are now gearing to pull all stops to get on top of “surveys”! Thanks largely to the prompting of their solicitous wards, the song “It’s now or never” is now the popular refrain everywhere.
So far, only Binmaley Mayor Simplicio Rosario who has admitted to getting death threats. My guess-timate is there are hundreds more out there who have received threats and intimidation in various forms because they are formidable threats but are not saying so for fear they will be laughed as cowards by the other side!
Local elections are not simply about making likable candidates win. It’s not even about pride and glory for the followers. It’s mainly about economic survival for every unit or cell leader involved. No one likes to see his/her candidate lose because that would mean loss of potential source of livelihood for the next 3 years. The casual employment of a member in the family by the candidate in the municipio or congressman’s office is the aspiration of the ward leader, the worthiest reward reserved for the winner’s team. Without the anticipated employment, a family could go hungry and everyone hates that prospect befalling him or her because the other candidate won. Ergo, when the ward leaders start believing the other candidates must lose by whatever means, that’s when the trouble starts – and the war begins.
The assassination of San Carlos Mayor Resuello before the election was a classic case. Remember a sign that reads: “Never mind the dog, beware of the owner”?
Today, someone ought to make the sign that reads: “Never mind the candidate, beware of the ward leader”!
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