The credibility gap between a soldier of valor and a discombobulator

HE current controversies surrounding the Philippine Charity crusader to clean up what President Rodrigo Duterte called the “most corrupt government agency” at the beginning of his term.

resolve to rid it of corruption would certainly have to wrestle with their illegal grip of the bounties at stake.

PCSO General Manager Alexander Balutan 3rd was hired by President Duterte for his record of integrity, valor and dedication to duty as a bemedaled soldier and retired commander of the Marines to carry out a mission to “kill corruption” and enable the agency to generate funds legally for charity.

wage a war with a multi-headed enemy: poverty and the illegal gambling wolves that prey on the poor and cheat the government of it's rightful revenues.

Balutan immediately declared the Small Town Lottery (STL) the only legal and authorized numbers game nationwide, inviting and warning all illegal gambling operators in the country "go legal."

past regime re-emerged and tried without scruples to bluff his way back again into the corridors of power to legalize his place in the old numbers game. Balutan accused gambling lord Atong Ang of having offered him a deal to be allowed to take over the nationwide operations of the STL in return for a measly remittance of P200 million a month to the PCSO.

Ang denies this. But he let his uncouth tongue slip when in front of public TV cameras recently, he launched a volley of insults against Balutan and challenged the GM to resign if proven incompetent by Ang’s revised STL operation scenario of a much higher P5 billion minimum monthly income for the government, or P60 billion a year gross.

The fervor of the speech may have won the gambling lord ap the face of the PCSO report recently that STL has been making more than a billion pesos in monthly revenues just a year under GM Balutan’s watch.

Operated by government-authorized agent corporations (AACs) as a replacement for the mass-patronized illegal numbers game, “STL made history by generating P15.7 billion in annual revenue for 2017,” the PCSO report on February 5 signed by Balutan said. That more than tripled the P4.7 billion revenue posted by the agency the year before. This means an average STL revenue for the government of P1.3 billion a month.

That makes Atong Ang’s offer of P200 million monthly earnings look like a cheap shot. He must be shamed with the rejection of his ludicrous scheme. Raising his ante to P5 billion monthly after bravado. If there is any sincerity to his challenge to the PCSO chief, why did he offer only P200 million at the outset and not P5 billion monthly, which he now boasts is actually just the minimum the government could collect from STL?

bereft of any decency, let alone goodwill.

The government is striving to establish control over the masspatronized illegal numbers game, without which control it would continue to bleed the poor dry, and the state of tax revenues that have been running at between P40 billion and P50 billion in annual losses.

Without police powers, however, the PCSO would be rendered helpless against the deeply entrenched underground in the country.

Thus, the collaboration between PCSO and the Philippine National Police to execute President Duterte’s Executive Order 13 – the all-out war against illegal gambling – deserves full support from everyone as dead-set as Balutan on eradicating this menace to society, along with illegal drugs.

The Duterte administration and the citizenry must ignore and leave Atong Ang alone with his discombobulations.