Gensanportal - Mindanao News Blog

By Jun Parada

Some political leaders in our province have been fooled into believing that the STL or Small Town Lottery can bring enormous income to LGUs and can stop the proliferation of illegal numbers games such as jueteng, swertes, “last 2” and the like in the countryside. While these promises seem to be tempting, only the greedy corrupt or gullible naïve individuals would buy the trick for in truth – the STL would only bring intense high-profile corruption, encourage the propagation of additional illegal numbers games in our locality and increase the incidence of petty crimes and others.

In several provinces with STL in the country, almost all the LGUs have complained of many violations which prompted them to request the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) to cancel STL franchises. The violations involved the STL operators’ failure to meet financial obligations to human resources management; fraudulent and false submission of actual gross receipts of the bets/sales thus effectively denying PCSO, the Philippine National Police and the concerned LGUs of the actual amount/share due them; failure to pay the government its due to agencies such as Social Security System, PhilHealth and Pag-Ibig; and for using STL operations as fronts for illegal gambling by way of establishing illegal “bookies”.

To be candid about it, the STL miserably failed to obliterate the proliferation of the illegal numbers games and, worse, it even influenced the rising incidence of petty crimes like theft, robbery, estafa and even homicide. It also caused widespread addiction to gambling as betting folks, adults and youngsters alike, could be easily enticed on its “no minimum and no maximum bets” policy. Meaning, anyone can bet even as low as 5 centavos in the STL.

In their recent joint-manifesto of protest, Cong. Francisco Matugas and Cong. Guillermo Romarate condemned the Barbers-proposed STL saying it was a legalized Jueteng. The two solons joined the ranks of clergymen led by Catholic Bishop Msgr. Antonieto Cabahug, the Protestant Church, the Muslims, the professionals, lawyers, peasants and cause-oriented groups in exposing the evils of STL and its adverse effects on the masses.

Truly indeed, the STL is a legalized jueteng. Whatever name you want to call it, the game mechanics, nature and operation is one hundred percent jueteng and the same has a satanic influence. To better grasp its evil origin, here’s a biblical-mathematical backgrounder on jueteng which was posted by Dean Jorge Bocobo on Thursday, February 2, 2006, at http://philippinecommentary.blogspot.com which is quoted hereunder as follows:

FROM THE BIBLICAL BOOK OF REVELATION:

Rev 13:16-18 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six: 666.

FROM THE RULE BOOK OF JUETENG:–

(1) Choose two numbers between 1 and 37.

(2) Bet any amount of money and win if they are chosen in the local daily draw.

Those who are not aficionados of the jueteng numbers game may be wondering what the chances are of winning at jueteng, assuming of course that one is placing a bet with a reputable Jueteng Lord who runs a fair draw (usually done like bingo, with 37 numbered tokens drawn from a bottle or jar). What are the odds of winning the simplest bet in jueteng? It is equal to one chance out of the total number of unique pairs of numbers that can be picked between 1 and 37.

A simple way of figuring out the answer is as follows: Suppose that the two winning numbers in a given jueteng draw are X and Y. There were exactly 37 numbers for the Jueteng Lord to pick from to get the first winning number, X. But there were only 36 ways to pick the second number, Y. But since he could have picked Y before X, the number of possible unique pairs that can be drawn, is 37 times 36 divided by 2. Which is equal to 666, the Number of the Beast! Here is the “official” way to do the same thing using a formula for the number of Combinations that can be formed out of 37 things taken two at a time: