By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
Gentlemanly as he is, businessman and former government gaming consultant Charlie “Atong” Ang appeared before the Senate investigation into 31 missing sabungeros last Friday.
Like a billion-dollar gambling boss, Ang has never been the type to back down from a congressional probe. But it seems to me that his testimony has brought the Senate panel farther from finding the poor cockfight aficionados and getting them back to their families.
Instead, Ang has successfully pictured himself as a law-abiding, government-supporting, and socially responsible “victim of a conspiracy” to take his giantly envious e-sabong operations down.
And he does have a plausible claim that rival e-sabong operators conspire to target him and his Lucky 8 Star Quest Inc., whose e-sabong operators have snared upwards of 90 percent of the betting game.
As a spectator, you’ve got to hand it to him that he has owned that audience at the Senate by opening a can of worms and offering to tell all – especially about this “biggest gambling operator in the country and who claims to control every president” – in a closed-door executive session.
He even threw in very powerful names there to make sure Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa’s investigating panel takes the hook. Ang named alleged gambling lord Bong Pineda; one “Congressman Teves,” a “General Cascolan,” former Agbiag party-list representative Patrick Antonio, and Mayor Elan Nagaño of San Leonardo, Nueva Ecija.
The talented Mr. Ang now compels us to crave for details about the mysterious workings behind e-sabong operations in the country, the making of billions in profits that feed our fantasies, and the controversy of big-name government officials embroiled in it.
He’s increased the entertainment value of this congressional probe. And yet, again, none of these may bring us closer to the truth of what happened to the missing sabungeros.
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As a footnote, the Senate hearing might not have jolted Mr. Ang one bit even if senators stopped short of calling him a person of interest or a suspect in a case that could very well be a kidnapping or a mass murder.
Instead, senators unsettled online payout companies G-Cash and Paymaya after publicly stating that ¾ or 75 percent of e-sabong bets come across through G-Cash.
Paymaya and G-Cash had to defend themselves against suggestions they could be illegally facilitating the placing of bets by minors or young children and ended up debunking further on-the-spot theories that terrorists and money launderers may use their systems.
GCash denied the allegations, citing technical measures that prevent minors from doing so, while Paymaya assured it has a sound “know-your-client” policy.
Even then, Senators Dela Rosa and Francis Tolentino came at them, suggesting that to absolve themselves of liability from being “virtual betting stations for e-sabong,” GCash and Paymaya buttons should be taken off the e-sabong sites as a mode of payment.
Wow! If I were a GCash or Paymaya executive, I’d rather be in Atong Ang’s “hot seat.”
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