E-gambling is a social cancer: Nip it in the bud

Gambling is an addiction. Recently, multiple articles were written about online or e-gambling, including the recent article of professor Randy David (see “The quiet rise of online gambling,” 7/6/25). He had given us a history of online gambling and Philippine offshore gaming operators, which involved mainly Chinese nationals. Despite the revenues to the government from Pogos, criminal behaviors like kidnapping, money laundering, sex trafficking, and government corruption occurred. We did not learn from our experience with Pogos.

Gambling is an addiction. It initially affects the gambler, his family, and later on, the community to which he belongs. We heard stories ranging from broken families, loss of properties, and even suicides because of gambling. We have enough legal gambling here, like horse racing, jai alai, sweepstakes/lotto, cockfight, casino, and illegal ones like jueteng, mah-jongg, sakla, tongits, that there is no need for another form of gambling, i.e., online or e-gambling.

The government, through Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, and the Catholic Church, through Cardinal Pablo David, want controls to be placed on e-gambling. We should not wait for the government to pass laws to control gambling, since we all know how slow our government works. We should start from within. Individual citizens should help stop gambling through a boycott of all forms of e-gambling. We should nip it in the bud. It is a form of cancer to our society. It should be cut to prevent its spread. Since we are a people of faith, our religious leaders can help us in killing this plague through their sermons and statements and even through social media.

If all of us Filipinos become proactive in stopping all forms of e-gambling right now, we will be doing the “resolve to halt the slide” of our digital economy, as per professor David.

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Ida M. Tiongco,

idationgco@gmail.com