POGOs – our curse and shame

Gambling is prohibited in China. The Chinese government has made gambling illegal because it is linked to a range of crimes, including human trafficking, kidnapping and prostitution. China believes that gambling has a negative impact on social and economic order in addition to tarnishing China’s image.

But banning gambling cannot eliminate the desire of Chinese citizens to gamble. When I went to Macau more than ten years ago, a hotel manager told me that only a limited number of Chinese citizens were allowed to go to Macau. They are the lucky ones because a certain number of Chinese citizens are allowed to go to Macau.

Remember, China did not allow them to gamble, only to go to Macau as tourists. But everyone knew they came to Macau to gamble anyway. At the time, many Chinese citizens also went to private resorts in the Philippines that had casinos. Yes, even China knew how to have its pick of the legal options.

With a population of more than 1.4 billion, there are definitely hundreds of millions of people who have the urge to gamble. After all, gambling is a traditional activity in China since ancient times. Historical data show that gambling in China can be traced back to 3,000-4,000 years ago. If gambling is in the DNA of Filipinos, then it is even deeper in the genes of Chinese people.

Prostitution has a much longer history, and societies around the world have been prohibiting it for thousands of years. But prostitution isn’t going away, is it? Gambling isn’t going away either, either in the US or in China. But just like prostitution, we don’t have to allow it or build commercial complexes to promote it.

But we do regulate. Not prostitution (although it’s still very active there), but gambling. Ferdinand Marcos tolerated it for a time. He allowed a floating casino to operate legally, moored next to the Manila Hotel. Sure, it was supposed to be for tourists only, but the government has a disgraceful record of regulating everything, starting with simple traffic rules.

The operating principle is not the rule of law, but the actual practice of the rule of law, which means that the rules apply to everyone, but some people may break them (except for traffic rules, which everyone breaks). Of course, guess who can break the rules without fear of reprimand or punishment? If our daily lives remain free of chaos, it is because the majority of the dependents follow the rules, while only a few with power and/or wealth ignore them.

Now, we have entered the modern era, 52 years after martial law, and corruption has not decreased, patriotism has not increased, and certainly not independence, with most of the population heavily dependent on government handouts (and some from the private sector and religious institutions). We have made no real improvements in critical areas such as transparency and accountability, or closing the gap between the poor and the rich and powerful. We have completely forgotten the horrors we have lived through, so arrogantly believing that we can curb crime that China cannot.

While authoritarian states fear becoming regulators of gambling, weak and emerging democracies have offered to regulate it. Worse, this gambling has been electronic and digitized, as if we are experts in controlling the daily scams and hacks that plague our financial institutions and transactions. We are here to shout to China – give us back your gambling, give us back your gamblers.

For reasons that any of us can guess, China was more than eager to agree, facilitating the financing and operation of online gambling operations by Chinese companies. Thus, POGO was born, which literally means Philippine Offshore Gambling Operator. First of all, the name is a misnomer. It is an offshore gambling operation for the Chinese, but it is an onshore operation for the Philippines.

Because for us, POGO is not an offshore operation but a physical operation, so we are talking about buildings and communication infrastructure. China, despite its authoritarian power, still shuns gambling because of the sordid influence it brings to its social and economic fabric. China must be laughing the loudest when seeing the Philippines trying to regulate POGOs.

China is afraid of corruption, so it dare not legalize gambling, just regulate it. The Philippines does not seem to be afraid of corruption, or it welcomed POGOs, and today it is paying a heavy price. Curbing corruption is not our strength, but our weakness. Those who allow POGOs in under the pretext that we can regulate must be the most stupid. Or think they are very cunning.

Of course, as China knew beforehand, we embraced POGOs and knowingly accepted the cascade of criminality it unleashed. It’s not like we didn’t have crime before POGOs; our own gambling history is full of bloodshed and networks of corruption that have affected law enforcement agencies. But with POGOs, as with drugs, the tentacles of corruption extend from the highest officials in all three branches of government to the lowest.

Only the dumbest or the greediest would facilitate the entry of POGOs into the Philippines. It is easy to think of Pagcor as the regulator and Pagcor as the common denominator. But Pagcor is not its own boss. Pagcor is not independent in any way, shape or form.

The corruption scandal of POGOs has spread like a virus. POGOs have become the global face of corruption in the Philippines. Many say Marcos wants to clear his father’s name. I understand. I can even believe that Marcos is willing to do whatever it takes, legal or not, moral or not, to achieve this goal.

POGOs are proof that corruption is alive and well. It is our curse and shame. What a horrible legacy.