CBCP launches campaign vs. Small Town Lottery
The Catholic Church will definitely not stand idly by while the government is actively seeking to establish Small Town Lottery (STL) in all towns.
The Church’s determination to fight off STL could be gleaned from the letter appeal from no less than the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) read in the pulpit in Catholic churches and issued to Catholic schools in Pangasinan by priests during their Saturday and Sunday Masses an appeal.
The appeal dated November 30 and written by CBCP President Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo was read in all churches and chapels during the Eucharistic Celebrations while school directors were given the discretion when and how to make the statement known to their respective school administration, faculty and student body.
Titled “Plea and Appeal: Stop STL Please”, it is “an urgent and ardent plea addressed to our government officials from the local to the national level” and a direct appeal to individuals and corporate entities involved in the operation and promotion of STL.
Lagdameo echoed Lingayen-Dagupan Archdiocese’s Archbishop Oscar Cruz’s stand describing STL as the legal cover up for the illegal numbers game jueteng. “The endorsement of STL simply means the promotion of jueteng,” he said.
He maintained that STL’s structure and organization show that it cannot not be financially viable without jueteng behind it.
He said that both STL and jueteng have the same operators and collectors, the same poor victims and the same influential wealthy beneficiaries.
“They are a dangerous and insidious pairing,” he said.
Lagdameo asked: Is there not enough poverty in the country that the poor should have even
less because of their exploitation by STL and jueteng?
He said that “with the adoption of STL, it would be next to impossible to stop jueteng”.
Whatever economic development our government shall have proudly achieved will be diminished or negated by the corruption and exploitation that accompany STL and jueteng, he said. — EVA
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