P30-B a year jueteng money may plug education needs

Legalizing jueteng can boost government revenues by P30 billion a year — money that can be used to address the classroom shortage and send every Filipino child to school by 2015 — a lawmaker said Sunday. Dasmariñas City, Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., proponent of House Bill 3289 which seeks to legalize the numbers game in favor of the education sector, said the amount can also fund loopholes in the education system. "In terms of assured recurring non-tax revenues that can finance the construction of new classrooms, or the enlistment of additional teachers, nothing can match government's projected earnings from legalized jueteng," Barzaga said in a statement. In President Benigno Aquino III's State of the Nation Address last July, the chief executive said that the country needs at least P130 billion to construct new classrooms across the country. However, Barzaga said that in the budget proposal for 2011, only P12.4 billion has been allocated for the construction of 13,147 classrooms. The lawmaker also said legalizing jueteng can generate income that will help the country achieve the Millennium Development Goals concerning education. Millennium Development Goals The goals are targets set in 2000 by United Nations member states committed to work towards eliminating poverty by 2015. Among these goals is a pledge to achieve universal primary education. Participation rate, also known as net enrolment rate, refers to the ratio of the enrolment for the age group corresponding to the official school age in the elementary or secondary level to the population of the same age group in a given year. The government has targeted a participation rate of 93 percent by 2015. But in 2009, the participation rate was pegged at 85.12 percent. The 2007 Philippine Midterm Progress Report on the MDGs also said there was “low probability" that the Philippines would achieve its goal on universal primary education by 2015. [See: Bangkang Papel boys a rarity in Arroyo education report card] The poor man's game The illegal numbers game, popularly known as jueteng or the poor man’s game, made headlines in the last two weeks after whistleblower Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz and Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago on separate occasions bared a list of individuals who were alleged jueteng lords or who supposedly were receiving payoffs for coddling jueteng operators. These include Department of the Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Rico Puno, former DILG Sec. Ronaldo Puno, and retired Philippine National Police head Director General Jesus Verzosa, among others. Santiago claimed heads of the DILG and the PNP have been receiving at least P300 million a year in jueteng money. "By allowing jueteng, the two men together will receive at least one percent of jueteng gross receipts every month, or one percent of annual receipts of some P30 billion," Santiago said in her privilege speech at the Senate on Wednesday. —VS, GMANews.TV