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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Monday, February 27, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Small Town Lottery (STL) may be legal but it is immoral, a priest in the Diocese of Bacolod stressed.
Playing it goes against “God’s norms” and must be discouraged, Father Felix Pasquin said. “Not everything that is legal is moral.”
The San Sebastian Cathedral rector was reacting to a Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) statement clarifying the legality of the operation of STL in Negros Occidental and this capital city.
A certification issued by PCSO general manager Alexander Balutan showed that Super Lucky Beagler, Inc. is an “authorized agent corporation” for STL.
The PCSO also said Super Beagler need not secure a business permit from the city government, citing a Court of Appeals decision stating that betting outlets are exempted from local government taxation and charges.
According to Pasquin, the Roman Catholic Church’s concern is that man’s decisions and actions adhere to norms set by God.
“Conformity to God’s norm defines the goodness or badness of an act,” said the social communications head of the Diocese of Bacolod.
Since STL is a form of gambling, it is “an activity that contravenes God’s norm…qualifying it as not moral even if legal,” Pasquin said.
Engaging in the lottery game must be discouraged, he stressed.
“This is not [to pass] judgment on our public officials, whom we know have the good of the people at heart,” Pasquin said. “The Church has to teach her flock not to judge them but to guide them.”
Gambling is a bone of contention between government and the Catholic Church. The latter has been against the activity, legal or not.
The Catholic Church teaches that “games of chance or wagers are not in themselves contrary to justice,” the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) said in a statement in 2005, citing the “Catechism of the Catholic Church.”
Such games “become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others,” the CBCP said. “The passion for gambling risks becoming enslavement.”
“The form of gambling that is organized, widespread and systemic, whether legal or illegal, is not desirable,” it added. “It is creating a culture of gambling that is seriously eroding the moral values of our people.”
Meanwhile, Task Force Crusaders reported to House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez that STL exists in Negros Occidental and this capital city. National Deputy Commander John Chiong said the activity needs to be investigated.
Anyone applying for an STL permit in a city or town is “required to pay thousands,” Chiong wrote Alvarez on Feb. 23, citing the “routine data and information gathering” of the anticrime task force under the Office of the Solicitor General.
But when a permit is about to be granted, the PCSO asks agents with province- or island-wide coverage to “come up with a better deal,” resulting in the eventual rejection of smaller agents, Chiong claimed.
Chiong also said they discovered that STL is being used as a front for illegal numbers games like jueteng or masiao.
Alvarez has the same belief. In a House inquiry into illegal gambling earlier this month, he said the PCSO “just wants to justify jueteng” with STL.
He threatened the agency with a complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman if it does not stop STL operations./PN
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