IF ERAP falls because of jueteng, it would be truly poetic. For one, the President is a consummate gambler, as attested by Singson's accounts of all-night mah-jongg parties where bets could total a staggering P50 million. Moreover, jueteng belongs to the world that created and molded Estrada—a world of sleaze, dirty politics and thuggery. It is also a milieu that, like Estrada, is quintessentially Filipino.

The world of jueteng is, as Singson described it, "Everybody happy: BIR, DILG, police hanggang sarhento (up to sergeant), sundalo (soldiers), mayor, governor, pati media." There were enough pay-offs to keep mouths shut and pockets full. Data from jueteng ledgers seized by the police in Ilocos Sur in June showed what the going rates in the province were: P1 million monthly for the regional PNP director; P500,000 for the provincial police chief; P150,000 for the local congressman; and PP7,500 to P30,000 for the municipal police chief, depending on the size of the town

In fact, the media played no mean part of this conspiracy of silence. Eighteen journalists were supposedly listed in the ledgers found by the police in their raids on Ilocos Sur gambling operations. The media also figured in the disbursements from jueteng money that were made to Jimmy Policarpio, head of Presidential Legislative Liaison Office. According to Singson, Policarpio keeps a stable of media people on his payroll to ensure that the President gets favorable coverage.

In 1995, a joint report by the PCIJ and the Institute for Popular Democracy showed the range of officials who provided protection for jueteng operations in a town in Pangasinan and estimated that about a third of the money raised from gambling went to pay for such protection. Operational costs accounted for another third: Of this, winnings took 10 percent; operational costs, 10 percent; cabos and cobradores, 10 percent. The remaining third went to the jueteng operator, who used up part of this money for the patronage that keeps the game's grassroots base grateful and happy.

Like local politics, jueteng is nurtured by a combination of complicity, beneficence and terror. It is in this same cauldron where corruption thrives and where Erap Estrada thought he could reign as President. He was very nearly proven right.