by Sheila S. Coronel

DURING the Christmas season, all the roads of Lubao, Pampanga lead to the fortress-like compound of Rodolfo 'Bong' Pineda, the biggest jueteng lord in all of Central Luzon, and his wife Lilia, the mayor of this sleepy, nondescript town of rice farmers and assorted tradespeople just an hour's drive from Manila.

In an annual rite that has become a tradition in Lubao, hundreds of residents line up for the bags of goodies that the Pinedas give their constituents every year. The schoolteachers get a leg of ham, corned beef and other canned goods. The ordinary barriofolk take home gift bags containing dressed chicken, sardines, rice and noodles.

Such generosity ensures that the Pinedas have loyal and enduring grassroots support in their hometown. But like everywhere else where jueteng thrives, Bong Pineda's gambling operation cannot exist without the tolerance—and active protection—of local and national officials, the police, even the Church, which is a beneficiary of jueteng contributions.

Such protection has a price. "In 1995, we estimated that (every year) about P2.5 billion (of jueteng money) goes to intelihensiya, the word used for bribe money," said Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez, head of the House committee on public order and safety. "Bribe money that lands in the hands of police officers, local officials and maybe other officials—judges, prosecutors, etc.—who have an active part in controlling, and at the same time protecting, jueteng."

A grassroots-based gaming operation, jueteng is probably the biggest and most public racket in this country. Although illegal, the game is hardly kept secret. Bets are openly taken by a network of cobradores (collectors) who report to cabos or headmen. The jueteng operators are well known in their areas by citizens, local officials and the police.

It doesn't matter that every other year or so, Congress conducts an inquiry into why jueteng persists. Names of jueteng operators are reported in the newspapers, and the police oblige with well-publicized raids on gambling operations. Charges are even filed—several are pending in court against Bong Pineda, for example, but none of these ever prosper. At most, a few cabos land in jail and are eventually bailed out (penalties for jueteng are light, a maximum of six months in prison or a fine of P1,000).

The charges made in October by Ilocos Sur Governor Luis 'Chavit' Singson that President Joseph Estrada received over P500 million in gambling payoffs show just how far up the layers of jueteng protection go. If Singson is right, Estrada did what none of his predecessors has done: systematize and centralize jueteng collections in the Office of the President. It was a move as audacious as it was cynical, and it shows Estrada's keen appreciation that the presidency—with its powers and prerogatives—can be the biggest racket in the country. And that the President can play The Godfather.

JOSEPH Estrada should not be blamed for thinking that he could get away with being the lord of all jueteng lords. The milieu from which he sprung is old-style, small-town Pinoy politics where the mayor is boss and takes a cut from a variety of illicit activities that takes place in his area, whether it is smuggling, gambling or illegal logging. In this milieu, the mayor and the police, which is under his control, provide protection for illegal activities, ensuring that the syndicates are able to operate with a minimum of harassment from officials and the law. Hardly ever is anyone called to account - not the mayor, or the police, or the criminals. The operative word is impunity: Everyone knows, but no one is caught.

Jueteng provides the most advanced form of this network of complicity. In many towns and villages, jueteng, politics and daily life are so inextricably intertwined. Gambling contributions fill up campaign coffers, and it is not unusual for jueteng operators themselves to be members of political clans, which use gambling profits to build a network of patronage—the kind of do-gooding and gift-giving that the Pinedas have honed to a fine art.

For sure, Lilia Pineda is not an exception as far as this marriage of jueteng and politics goes. In 1995, Rep. Bonifacio Gillego exposed Sorsogon Governor Raul Lee as a "notorious jueteng operator and maintainer." In fact, Lee went as far as naming his own brother-in-law as provincial police chief. San Rafael, Bulacan Mayor Jesus Y. Viceo is listed by the Philippine National Police (PNP) as a jueteng operator in his province. Chavit Singson's own clan in Ilocos Sur is known to have jueteng connections. Both he and his brother and bitter rival Jose or Bonito Singson have been named in police intelligence reports as jueteng operators in their province. Police reports also pointed to Eric's congresswoman-wife Grace as a jueteng protector. Similarly, the Sorianos of San Carlos, Pangasinan are both in jueteng and local politics.

Even a family as steeped in politics and landed wealth as the Cojuangcos of Tarlac have not been spared jueteng allegations: Former Tarlac Rep. Jose Cojuangco Jr., former President Corazon C. Aquino's brother, has been implicated in a 1995 House hearing as intervening on behalf of jueteng operators, while police reports allege that jueteng in the province continued unchecked when his wife, the glamorous socialite Margarita 'Tingting' Cojuangco, was Tarlac governor from 1995 to 1998.

Even before Chavit Singson made his scandalous charges about Estrada, there were already indications that jueteng money was playing a role in campaigns for national office—hence, the well-publicized charges that Vice-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has received campaign contributions from Pineda.

Given the pervasiveness of jueteng, it is not surprising that some of the politicians who oppose Estrada are tarred with the same brush that has smeared the President's reputation and brought him so close to losing his post. While this does not exonerate Estrada or deflate the dimensions of his alleged sins, it puts Erap in context as the logical culmination of a political system warped by corruption, patronage and illicit money. If Singson's charges against him are proven true, it can be said that Estrada was able to demand pay-offs from jueteng and amass so much money in so short a time because the system allowed him to.