By Jan Vicente B. Pekas
Online advertisements have always been a hassle. When you are on the internet, they are not something you can avoid but an inevitable obstacle you must go through. Recently, the previously annoying ads became somewhat disturbing. Online gambling had recently dominated the ads I saw when surfing the internet. They contain what you would expect with the flashy colors, big and bold numbers and all sorts of phrases that entice you to bet it all and win big. Whats more disappointing are influencers and online personalities partaking in the business. They speak and coerce their audience into entering what looks like a sure win situation but is actually a death trap.
For the past few months, I saw jeepney drivers and other working-class people on the street hunch over their phone and get busy with online gambling apps. Even beyond the screen, “jueteng” stations near jeepney stations attract all sorts of over-worked and under paid workers. From cashiers to dispatchers, they all walk over, give their bills and put in their numbers, then move on. All of the customers were ordinary people. No one wore a face of content or a relaxed state but of weary gazes and a tired gait.
These deathtraps were and is still allowed to be paraded in public and brandish their outlandish claims of winning big and fast. They target the already victims of theft in the lower strata of society and try to suck more life from a group of people already on the brink of collapse.
Still, gambling companies make their way into public eye. In the recent Panagbenga festival, gambling floats made their way down Session Road. Gambling addiction already leads to so many ways a persons life gets ruined, but politicians still willingly get in bed with these gambling corporations. They get to open their doors inside the city and slither their way online and poison an already desperate, beaten, and vulnerable group of people.
Come the typhoon season, another set of calamities will inevitably befall upon a defenseless population. The ordinary Filipino is forced to go through one crisis after another until the entices from these gambling companies start to look more and more like the only viable choice in order to survive.
These gambling companies target the people that politicians have left vulnerable and desperate. This unholy partnership thrives off of the ordinary Filipinos suffering and to this day make millions of.
A suffering population is just how they want it. They prefer a vulnerable and desperate people that falls for minimal “ayudas” and cheap food packages being handed out. It is time we realized, we need a whole new set of leaders if we want actual positive changes for the people.
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