Jueteng in perpetual motion

By Gerry Garcia

OFF-the-cuff rundown on what makes the GMA regime most “evil”. After joint agreement with ASEAN for stand-off vs. China in the Spratlys RP suddenly left on its own and joined China on a joint seismic “exploration” of RP’s which gov’t politicians and bureaucrats could skim $400 million in kickbacks up to 2010.

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Our Bishop Oscar Cruz has given us special reason to be proud as doting kababayans. He has become an instant celebrity of sort by his repeated appearances on the boob tube and his often lonesome but daring confrontation with the corrupt leaders in the government, especially those behind the ZTE scandal.

He was among the anti-GMA rallyists in Makati recently demanding President GMA’s resignation.

Bishop Cruz has attained a reputation nationwide as an uncompromising crusader against the illegal numbers game — jueteng. His group, the AGCO, is an anti-jueteng movement that he recently organized in the city and the members who were overwhelmingly numerous were very evident during last Friday’s rally and parade in the city.

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Jueteng is a multi-tentacled financial octopus capable of sucking support from likely sectors in the community, like the national police still reeling under pressure of insufficient compensation or salary.

This illegal numbers game, usually tagged a “poor man’s game” serves to perfectly satisfy the poor man’s subconscious desire to hit the jackpot on the strength of a few pesos bet. That’s why jueteng is in demand stronger than the supply. That explains the perpetual staying power of jueteng, despite the number of drives mounted against it now or in the last many decades.

Governors, mayors and police chiefs, always receive hush prizes regularly to keep them from blowing  the whistle and naturally, they do not complain . . . especially knowing that as long as the economy lags and the poor masses are left empty-handed, they can not and will never stop the operations of jueteng.

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