Luck for Sale

by Manuel L. Quezon III

One reform mayor after another didn't alter the gambling scene in the city and by the '30s gambling had spread to the night clubs. It was difficult to enforce the law when the law-breakers included the top officials who had sworn to uphold the law. Then the war enforced a liberal attitude towards gambling; practically every house in the city became a casino, where the family maintained four or five mahjong tables -and thus survived the war years on tong. The Liberation brought Ted Lewin and big-time gambling on Aurora Boulevard... A sacla table, a pula't puti pit, a backyard tupada, the ten-centavo jueteng bet, or the fifty centavos slipped to a barbershop bookie -that's about the extent of our gambling orgies, which foreigners may find more pitiful than shocking, like the rest of our culture of poverty. -Nick Joaquin, Manila: Sin City? May, 1970

It might seem strange to some to see Catholic prelates fulminating against gambling, all of a sudden, it seems: after all, the passion of the proletariat for one form of gambling -the sabungan - was institutionalized in a large part, by the holding of cock-fights during Holy Days and local Feast Days; not to mention the tradition of gambling during wakes to provide funds for the bereaved family. In other countries, too, the Catholic Church has been seen (fairly or not) to be rather lenient on -at least petty forms- of gambling; Protestant pastors in the past used to fulminate over the way Catholic parishes sponsored Bingo as a form of wholesome recreation. The main line Protestant aversion to gambling -as exemplified by Jovito Salonga and Kilosbayan, which was the first to attack the Lotto- seems more understandable, and, somehow, more consistent: but then one hastens to point out that the Catholic Church at present is far different from the Church of the frailes . Still, there it is: Catholic bishops rumbling on about the Lotto seems a bit incongruous. That aside, you cannot expect Churches, if they strongly object to gambling, to take all of this sitting down. If they object to gambling, they must object. As one recent letter writer put it so succinctly, the church isn't in the business of making itself popular. It is not concerned with the minutiae of governance -which is the business of officials. Churches are obligated to look after the morals of their flocks: it can never be required to sanction something that it feels is conducive to moral turpitude. But -also- you cannot expect government to do the church's job for it: if ministers do not want their flock to sin, then convince them; don't expect government to make up for your failings. A good Catholic is formed in school, and in the parish. If they aren't turned out right it's not the government's fault: if bishops fail to shepherd their flocks, they shouldn't be given the opportunity to summon the police (or organs of government) to act as sheep dogs. Arguing about what prelates should or should not do, though, is a prescription for disaster; it is better to ponder a related question: in the face of such vociferous opposition from Christians (Catholic and Protestant) against the Lotto, and the view held by many people, that in promoting the Lotto the government has lost it's moral authority to banish jueteng, what is the government to do?

I think it simply has to abandon all pretensions to morality: at least, in the case of gambling. It should not try to determine whether gambling (in whatever form) is bad or good (let clergymen decide on that and advise their flocks accordingly), since for three administrations now, proceeds from games of chance has provided a vast source of income; rather, it should simply decide on whether it has the political will to make gambling an exclusive monopoly of the government. On this basis alone, the war on jueteng -and the continuation of the Lotto- may be justified: the elimination of unregulated, unlicensed gambling, made verboten by legislative fiat, becomes a legitimate goal for law enforcers.

If government can take upon itself the right and the privilege of regulating - through permits, and taxes, and so on- liquor and tobacco, which are, in themselves, things that feed minor vices, then it can regulate gambling. You cannot produce, sell, or consume liquor and tobacco without the consent of the government: the State could, conceivably, also ban them altogether -after all smoking, drinking, and gambling are not, by any means, basic human rights. This logic fuels the current persecution of smokers, for example; it is, in a way, the justification, for the government's regulation of dangerous drugs and firearms (they are items susceptible to potential abuse, but have positive functions if regulated). The State makes oodles and oodles of money from taxing beer and cigarettes; it does not care if people drink or smoke themselves to death. As far as it's concerned, it's fulfilled it's duties towards the drinker and smoker by affixing little warning labels. And besides, the ravages of vice help keep the economy turning over: there's more work for advertisers, doctors, psychiatrists, undertakers and florists.

As far as I see it, you can ask the State to make sure that cigarettes and tobacco - and eventually, gambling - are kept off-limits to young people; it is reasonable to demand of the state that, since it tolerates minor vices, it should keep the peace and ensure that those who over-indulge, don't do any harm to the rest of society. It is reasonable to demand that it should exhort citizens to "drink moderately" and inform them that "smoking is dangerous to your health" - and warn them that over-betting leads to penury. I the same way, citizens have the right to demand that the sale and distribution of more lethal and addictive drugs -and firearms- since they have their utility, be stringently controlled by the State. But so long as government makes money from these vices, you cannot ask it to not (passively) encourage people to drink, smoke, and bet: that is, unless you can suggest a reasonable alternative to these forms of income.

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