Hole-in-one at Customs; bogey at DILG?

The poor golfer remains mired in the sand trap (for knowingly signing a wrong scorecard) but he nevertheless scored a hole-in-one with his amazing tee-off as Customs chief.

Common sense is not illegal, so Lito Alvarez, in an initial move, says he’ll be placing orders for drawer-less office desks.

That move cannot hope to top President Nonoy Aquino’s banishment of the tyrannical police street sirens called wang-wang.

Alvarez, of course, is wholly convinced grease money at the Customs doesn’t change hands under the table.

Bribe is passed on to willing assessors through gaping office drawers.

***

There would always be occasions for graft at the Customs, the comfort room and the canteen to name only two.

Alvarez has also vowed to install closed circuit television (cctv) that could detect all sorts of transactions at the Customs bureau.

That should also count as a big birdie.

OK, one hole-in-one doesn’t make a win-win round in golf.

But this time out, Alvarez, still serving out a suspension for wholesale rules violation at Alabang, can be expected to land on the green, a safe distance from the watery trap.

***

ROVING word smith Percy Della, back from a vital state office stint in Sacramento, California, reports that the daily crow of the jueteng collector wailing out the day’s winning combination still serves as his wake-up clock in ocean-side Candon.

Out in Pampanga, a recent peep by one nosy builder of swimming pools into a heavily guarded mansion, reportedly owned by the biggest jueteng lord in the country, has stunned the fellow no end.

The pool he has built for the jueteng king, measuring six by 16 meters, is now waterless.

The sunken tiled area serves as repository, catch basin, for the mounds of assorted Philippine coins that pour in daily, like manna from heaven, from countless jueteng centers.

In fact, the amazed builder says they now use graders, mechanized shovels, to pour in and scoop up the coins from the monumental mounds of dirty money.

***

Nick Bruan, a daily wage-earner, swears there would be no stopping jueteng.

Out in Sta. Barbara, Pangasinan, where Bruan hopes to retire, he reports that poor parents in his neighborhood would require their children to skip the ride and instead walk to school.

Reason: they would rather bet their last centavo, hoping against hope, to hit the winning combination.

These poor souls would not mind that their chance of winning, is at best, only a thousand against one; it could be their last link to reality.

“Maski pambili ng lapis itinataya nila (They bet using their kids’ pencil money)” Bruan attests.

***

It’s an endless mismatch, with the poor masa forever on the losing end.

Poor bettors, praying and hoping for one lucky deal, would not mind that jueteng operators strip them raw not only of the measly shirts on their back, but of their very sanity.

It is savage, lawless. Jueteng is the devil’s claw, But as things stand, outlawing jueteng could be mindless and foolish as outlawing poverty itself.

Of course, Bruan sees one last chance.

He swears the crusade could be won if those in charge, mainly the DILG chief, would honestly put his ear to the ground.

Bruan, a poor worker and himself a hopeless jueteng captive, has offered a solution.

Frankly speaking, this one is quite promising and should be worth trying.

(This reporter will try to transmit to former Pangasinan Governor Oscar Orbos, who served as executive secretary to President Cory Aquino, details of the proposed solution.)