By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
My column last Tuesday just had to join mainstream media in blowing things open about how widespread gambling addiction has worsened through these downloadable apps. Smartphones have become portals for losing household incomes.
Well, it seems that some members of Congress were actually listening and some are now moving to stop e-wallet platforms from becoming handmaidens of gambling addiction.
But even before legislation takes form, the digital banking industry must first ask itself: how long can it pretend to be innocent while its platforms become seamless highways for siphoning away the money of the poor?
Rep. Jonathan Keith Flores, for one, speaks the truth when he pointed out how e-wallets have made it so easy — too easy even — for Filipinos to drop their bets and entire earnings into a black hole.
That’s exactly how online gambling works: with direct links to betting apps embedded inside these e-wallet platforms, the feeding of addiction becomes not just frictionless, but dangerously automatic. What’s worse is that some e-wallet apps do not just let you bet; they let you borrow — giving rise to the lethal cocktail of debt and gambling.
No wonder this compulsion develops easily among wage earners who gamble away their take-home pay. So, while the problem requires financial regulation, it also points to a moral crisis for both bettors and bet collectors.
These fintech companies profit off fees and transactions every time a user taps “load” or “top up” on a gambling app. They know it. And yet, they continue to keep the links wide open — with no hesitation. While the law may not yet strictly prohibit these linkages, responsible corporate citizenship — and basic decency — should have moved them long before any legislative threat. They should have led the campaign to disconnect from gambling, not wait to be forced.
And where is the government’s moral recovery program in all this? Where is the conscience of governing institutions to stop millions of Filipinos from sliding into financial ruin and family breakdown? The State has a duty far beyond regulating financial transactions. It is duty-bound to rescue its people from addiction’s grip.
If these digital platforms serve as the front door, who’s manning the dark rooms inside? We must unmask those running these illegal gambling networks — who bankroll them, who protect them. These are not invisible operators.
Syndicates require human operators, recruitment networks, money trails, and, sadly, often the protection of corrupt law enforcement. The intelligence networks of our police and national security agencies must finally be brought to bear. If lawmen can trace terrorists, they can surely trace gambling bosses fattening themselves off the people’s desperation.
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