Gambling addicts

The scandal over 34 missing online cockfight enthusiasts once again highlights the evils associated with gambling.

If the accusations currently being hurled turn out to be true, e-sabong could prove as corrupting and vile as Philippine offshore gaming operations (POGO). Whether the scandal will lead to meaningful reforms in gaming, however, is uncertain.

Long before one of the security guards arrested for the kidnapping of e-sabong enthusiasts began singing like a canary, speculative talk was already circulating about the alleged involvement of gambling tycoon Charlie “Atong” Ang.

Alias Totoy, who has identified himself as former security guard Julie “Dondon” Patidongan, said in TV interviews that Ang himself gave the orders to take out e-sabong aficionados linked to cheating in the cockfights – supposedly the sin of the 34 who went missing between 2021 and 2022.

Patidongan also tagged Ang’s reported partner at the time, the equally controversial actress Gretchen Barretto, as complicit in the crime, through her alleged awareness of what was happening.

Yesterday, Ang maintained that “we are not criminals” and filed several complaints against Patidongan before the Mandaluyong prosecutor’s office.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, however, said Ang and Barretto are now considered as suspects in the kidnapping and possible murder cases.

Ang claimed Patidongan had tried to extort P300 million from him and had asked for his financial support when the security guard ran for mayor of Borobo, Surigao last May. Patidongan, on the other hand, claimed he had turned down Ang’s offer of P500 million as hush money.

Earlier, Remulla had said that the suspected brains in the kidnapping and murder of the sabungeros is reportedly so awash with cash he could buy justice even in the Supreme Court.

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The allegation is not surprising; the country is notorious for having the best justice that money can buy. This is the reason why, according to coffee shop talk, one veteran topnotch lawyer almost never lost a case in any court, even when he used legally bizarre arguments.

Even a magistrate who cultivated an image of honesty, according to the Marites grapevine, accepted a P20-million retirement pabaon or sendoff gift from a grateful litigant known (or notorious) for generosity in the right places.

And if reports are correct, Atong Ang has tons of money that can buy anything and anyone with a price tag. In March 2022, he told a Senate hearing that his Lucky 8 Star Quest Inc., operator of the Pitmasters Live e-sabong games, grossed P3 billion a month in commissions, for a net of about P900 million to P800 million.

That’s still larger than the revenue collected by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) from e-sabong, which averaged P640 million a month in that year.

It’s not the first time that Ang has figured in a controversy involving involuntary disappearance. During the election campaign in 1998, he was seen in a video with then presidential front-runner Joseph Estrada, playing high-stakes poker in the VIP pit of a casino in Manila.

On Jan. 16, 1998, PAGCOR video technician Edgar Bentain disappeared. Bentain, suspected of providing the video to then sweepstakes office chief Manuel Morato who then made the video public during the election campaign, has not been seen again. The video was damaging, but not enough to prevent the landslide victory of Erap.

Bentain’s father Eduardo, who was chief of police at the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman, Quezon City, blamed Erap, Atong Ang and former Ilocos Sur governor Luis “Chavit” Singson for Edgar’s disappearance.

Maybe Bentain was among the first to be tossed into Taal Lake, which was what happened to the 34 missing sabungeros, if Patidongan is telling the truth. He said the actual number of sabungeros who have been murdered is 108.

Good luck trying to find the cadavers. Taal Lake is actually the caldera of a volcano where liquefaction can occur, turning spots in the lakebed into something akin to quicksand. This has given rise to stories around the lake about mythical lake critters snatching people and pulling them into the pits of hell, never to be seen again.

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The disappearance of the e-sabong enthusiasts – whether 34 or 108 – looks systematic. It could only have been carried out by psychos with no compunction to kill, and who should have no place in a free, modern society.

In May 2022, then president Rodrigo Duterte suspended e-sabong operations nationwide amid the unsolved disappearance of the 34 sabungeros. President Marcos extended the suspension indefinitely in December 2022.

Live cockfights, however, can still be held.

Like drug money, gambling money is so huge it can finance criminal activities including human trafficking and murder, and can undermine free elections. If we’re worried about narco politics, we should also worry about gambling politics.

POGO money is believed to have made Alice Guo a Filipino citizen and won her election as mayor. A politician in Metro Manila is said to be unbeatable because his family’s gambling money allows him to dole out favors all year round to his constituents.

Jueteng money has been laundered by several gambling barons for a career shift to politics, becoming governors, mayors, congressmen. It’s dirty money, laundered into government office, but those responsible seem to be unstoppable. The huge amounts of money allow them to influence every pillar of the criminal justice system, allowing them to literally get away with murder.

These days, mental health experts are also warning about rising cases of online gambling addiction and its deleterious effects.

As in all addictions, authorities must step in to break the habit, and tighten the screws on the operators, whether illegal or state-run.