NOTHING COULD be more absurd than a government agency wringing its hands over illegal offshore gambling sites — when it has already legalized inland online gambling, fully, completely, brazenly. Accessible to people of all ages, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Who needs to sneak into a high-end casino when the casino has been brought into every living room, every bedroom, every child’s pocket — right there on the glowing screen of a smartphone?
Who cares if children, supposed to be studying, now bet away their OFW parents’ hard-earned remittances — sent through GCash, wagered online, and worse, gambled on credit? Parents’ money lost before it even lands on the dinner table.
Who cares if young celebrities shamelessly hawk these gambling sites on social media — prostituting themselves for a fee, in the service of conscience-less billionaires who cast their digital fishnets far and wide, reeling in the gullible and the desperate?
Goodbye studies. Goodbye decent jobs. Goodbye the hope of hardworking families. And hello — hello to a whole generation of gambling addicts. People didn’t care about killing addicts; now people don’t seem to care about breeding them.
We are not just negligent — we are complicit. And when an entire generation is sacrificed on the altar of easy profit, we can only ask: who will save us from ourselves?
We are doomed — unless we wake up.
