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At the hearing of the House of Representatives on the proposed P2.85 billion (approx US$60.5 million) budget for 2009 of the Department of Trade and Industry, its chief secretary, Peter Favila said, Singapore and Malaysia, two of the biggest economies in the Asian region made big money and rallied their respective economies by allowing foreign investors to put their money primarily in entertainment and private gaming. The trade secretary was referring to the US$15 billion casino and entertainment complex the government will construct along the reclaimed areas of Manila Bay in Pasay City.
Favila said the Philippines registered only around US$2 billion in foreign investments, while its Asian neighbors like Singapore and Malaysia attracted US$8 billion and US$10 billion respectively when the countries set up casino and entertainment centers.
The Las Vegas escapade of the Manila government met strong reactions from various sectors and groups, of which one was the influential Roman Catholic Church headed by the highly vocal Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, which immediately denounced the proposal.
CBCP former president and Archbishop Oscar Cruz of the Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan in Pangasinan slammed the proposal to allow casinos to operate in the country. A staunch critic of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration and a hard core opponent of private gaming and illegal gambling in the country, the outspoken prelate dismissed the idea as immoral, and said that the government is acting like a big gambling lord who sees gambling as an economic and social response to worsening poverty among impoverished Filipinos.
In his personal blog, Archbishop Cruz wrote: “The Philippine Government is the official gambling lord -- a living reality that makes all upright and decent Filipinos wallow in disgust and shame. To promote gambling for charity and humanitarian purposes, to build a US$15-billion gambling city for the progress and development of the country…are but signs of desperation to deodorize and sanitize the downright vice of gambling -- with the present administration as its bosing (master, boss).”
In a separate blog entry, the prelate attacked the very concept of casinos saying these attracted only “the greedy, avaricious, the dubious characters and menacing individuals.”
“These official gambling houses do not only cater to those who crave for the money of everybody else, but in effect provide for the making of gambling addicts, for their commission of different crimes to sustain their vice of gambling—to the extent of doing away with own families.”
The same advocacy is shared by the activist fisherfolk alliance Pamalakaya, whose members were displaced 15 years ago when the government forcibly evicted about 5,000 fishing families in Pasay Reclamation Area along Manila Bay to pave way for more reclamation of more coastal waters to host the ambitious multi-billion dollar casino and entertainment complex along the bay.
Like Archbishop Cruz, Pamalakaya was also mad when it heard about Secretary Favila’s highly suggestive proposal to allow the construction of casino and entertainment centers in the National Capital Region.
In a press statement to the local press, fisherfolk leaders of Pamalakaya openly called Arroyo’s trade chief a certified casino addict, who sees betting as a normal way of life and the people’s ticket to economic progress.
“It is like telling the lawmakers and the Filipino public in general that the people’s future is in the hands of big time international gambling syndicates. The taxpaying public is paying the salary of Secretary Favila, what they get from him is a nonsense public service and a recipe of immoral undertaking that is grossly revolting to Filipinos,” said Fernando Hicap, chairperson of the group.
The anti-casino group asserted that the multi-billion dollar Las Vegas-style gaming and entertainment center on reclaimed land on Manila Bay known as the $15-B Bagong Nayong Pilipino-Manila Bay Integrated City would result in crimes that are costlier and beyond repair compared to the benefits the government would gain from the gambling project.
Pamalakaya said they did not care if the national government earns hundreds of million of dollars in tax revenues, because that is not the point. The real point, the group asserted, is that casinos usually produce an array of crimes like prostitution, breaking up of families, theft, embezzlement of funds, issuance of bad checks and aggravated burglary, including increasing cases of child abuse and family abandonment.
To illustrate the exact impacts of casinos on public, Pamalakaya cited the report made by U.S. Senator Paul Simon to the U.S. Senate Committee investigating the effects of casinos on the American public. Quoting Simon’s report in the U.S. Senate in the early 1990s, the group said, “Costs to society of the problem gambler vary from the most conservative estimate of US$13,200 to US$30,000 per year."
According to a study cited in the senator report, "Overall, the state gains US$326 million in net revenue from the presence of the casinos. However, this figure is reduced substantially -- to US$166.25 million -- when even the lowest estimated social costs of compulsive gambling are included in the calculations. With mid-range estimated social costs, the overall impact becomes negligible, while with higher social-cost estimates, the impact becomes clearly negative."
The fisherfolk group further stressed the presence of casinos would attract more people to gamble as in the case of Illinois: “The Simon report points out that nationally, less than 1 percent or 0.77 percent of the population are compulsive gamblers, but when enterprises are located near a population, that number increases two to seven times."
Pamalakaya likewise cited the findings of Donald Trump, a Miami-based financial analyst on casino about the impact of high cost gambling. Citing Trump’s report, the group said promoters of the casino often stress the benefits of introducing casino operations.
Pamalakaya said: “People will spend a tremendous amount of money in casinos, money that they would normally spend on buying a refrigerator or a new car. Local businesses will suffer because they'll lose customer dollars to the casinos."
According to “Legalized Gambling as a Strategy for Economic Development” authored by Vernon George, an economic consultant for the casino industry, who also provides feasibility studies for communities contemplating riverboat gambling, private developers usually exaggerate public benefits in order to make their proposals more attractive.
Pamalakaya also cited the testimony delivered by prosecuting attorney Jeffrey Bloomberg of Lawrence County, South Dakota, during a U.S. House committee hearing on his experiences dealing with Deadwood, a small community in South Dakota that became the first place outside of Atlantic City and Nevada to legalize casino gambling.
Bloomberg said host communities were promised with "economic development, new jobs and lower taxes." Instead, casinos flourished, but other businesses did not. Based on Bloomberg’s own account, businesses that provide the basic necessities of life such as clothing are no longer available and customers of the town's only remaining grocery store walk past a gauntlet of slot machines as they exit with their purchases.
For the most part, jobs which are created earn minimum wage or slightly better and are without benefits. As for the claim that gambling brings tax relief, this simply has not proven true. Real property taxes for both residential and commercial properties have risen every year since gambling was legalized.
The Manila government must be stopped from transforming the Philippines into the gambling capital of Asia. It should go beyond the issues of cost-benefit analysis and realize the predictable irreparable damages that casinos and other gambling operations cause to hard working, yet starving Filipinos.
The marginalized 72 million out of the 87 million Filipinos need a policy measure that will make them productive. The collective interest cannot be realized by reducing them as workers in casinos or entertainers to foreign and local gambling clients.
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(Gerry Albert Corpuz is a correspondent of Bulatlat.com, an alternative Philippine online news site. He is also currently, the head of the information department of Pamalakaya, a national federation of small fisherfolk organizations in the Philippines. His website is www.gerryalbertcorpuz.motime.com, and he can be contacted at themanager98@yahoo.com)
