The church maintains the stand that any form of gambling deprives the poor of the scarce resources they have to betting in numbers games in the false hope of raising funds.
According to Fr. Val Pinlac of the Catholic Church said there is nothing wrong in indulging in gambling to help the people, but the reality is people resort to gambling to win and make their money grow.
Even Msgr. Leonardo Medroso affirmed that even legalized gambling should never be made a way of living.
Pinlac also pointed out that it is contradictory to project gambling as a means to help others, because it already deprived the poor of their goods and benefits in the process.
Accepting donations from institutions espousing gambling is a way of condoning what they are doing.
However, in the process, the legalized gambling—even those initiated by PAGCOR—already took away the little that many poor people have through the bets cast in the false hope of earning more from it.
The little that they have is lost to gambling, according to Pinlac.
On this, the Church appealed to the government to shun away from investors on gambling.
This came in the light of the revival of talks about the electronic bingo in the city as proposed by three groups—the Limketkai group, JA Gaming, and Bingo Pavillon.
Pinlac reiterated that the Church’s stand is to uphold righteous or honest means of livelihood. That is through hard work.
The Church discourages people from relying on gambling or the easy way of numbers games to take chances in the attempt to improve their lives.
Pinlac also maintains the Church’s stand on the morality of gambling even in seeking assistance from institutions such as the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCor).
Pinlac said these institutions’ practice of corporate social responsibility does not justify the entry of gambling in the community.
The government and private sector have programs that can address the needs of community without embracing gambling as means to development.
Gambling opens opportunities for people to overindulge in this recreational activity and become even poorer because of it, according to Pinlac.
On the other hand, Panglao Mayor Nila Montero said she will have the regulation of e-bingo in their town checked, after finding out that it has seriously affected the people, especially the minors.
The mayor wants authorities to verify if the rules and regulations on the operation of e-bingo in Panglao have been strictly implemented in such a way that minors are prohibiting from participating in the game.
The mayor also admitted that e-bingo has negative effect on the family, with most parents already engrossed in it.
Montero also suspected that the e-bingo facilities in Barangay Danao, Panglao have been utilized to facilitate illegal drugs trade.
The mayor just expressed lament that upon assuming office, e-bingo—of which she is against—had been well established already in Panglao, and she was left with no option against it.