By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
A week after GCash took a decent stand against online gambling by stopping e-sabong payments, now we have another ally in TikTok. The platform has decided to pull back real-money gambling ads, which is a small but meaningful win in the fight against government revenue-seekers who cannot seem to regulate it more strictly.
Online gambling was not designed as a playground for the rich who could afford to scratch off some of their excesses in life. Rather, it’s a trap for the poor who are desperate for a lucky break, chasing miracles on money borrowed from their family’s necessities.
Sadly, this is what the government tolerates to squeeze out taxes. It comes at the price of hunger, debt, and broken families by the thousands — all reaching for a jackpot none could ever share.
If TikTok and GCash can draw the line, perhaps celebrities could do the same and quit lending their popularity to this poisonous game. Yes, it is regulated by the government and therefore legal, but celebrities do not have to glamorize vices as entertainment for their fans.
Firing Line calls on them to step away from advertising an industry that thrives on the weakness of the vulnerable and the youth. And if they truly care for their fans, perhaps, they should join Sen. Leila de Lima in pushing for a real win for Filipinos: a total ban on online gambling.
Bulacan’s leading suspects
Since 2022, the Department of Public Works and Highways claims 37 flood-control projects were completed in Calumpit, Bulacan, alone — the very town that is drowning the worst in every storm. Yet Bulacan Governor Daniel Fernando shrugs like Pilate, saying he was “not in the loop.”
That excuse is as useless as an elephant’s ass.
In 2022, he even issued an executive order requiring agencies to report all infrastructure projects to him. If he never received updates, then what kind of three-term governor is he?
But the rot doesn’t stop there. Senator Joel Villanueva pleads innocence, too, stressing he never touched DPWH projects, never lobbied, never meddled.
Fine, he’s backed up by the DPWH chiefs, including his now colleague in the Senate, Mark Villar.
But what about the photos surfacing: snapshots of Senator Joel side-by-side with Henry Alcantara, the engineer now branded as Bulacan’s “flood scam kingpin”?
He, standing with Alcantara at inaugurations, he with Alcantara at basketball games, he with Alcantara at aid events. Maybe not a crime. But in a scandal about ghost projects, those pictures do reek of complicity and bad optics, making two of Bulacan’s highest government officials also look like the leading suspects.
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