Church hits Pagcor on Internet ‘sabong’ (Sabong News)
Author
William B. Depasupil
Date
MARCH 09 2005
The revival of cockfighting, or sabong, on the Internet, courtesy of the state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), has again pitted the government against the powerful Catholic Church.
Computerized cockfighting has triggered a tongue-lashing from the Church, which said on Tuesday that the government seems to have attached the idea of progress to gambling.
“No republic can be strong when gambling is its prime commodity and gambling addiction is its expertise,” said Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz, a former president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines.
“First, it has casinos in one place after another. Thereafter it was slot machines here and there. Now it is cockfight betting on the Internet. What is next?”
Cruz said that Congress, by extending the Pagcor franchise, is to blame for the proliferation of gambling in the country.
“Now it is certain that those behind Pagcor and its franchise extension will all be dead and still institutionalized gambling merrily lives on to sow more socio-moral liabilities in the country—“legally,” Cruz stressed.
At the rate institutionalized gambling is expanding, Cruz said, Pagcor appears bent on making gambling the prime industry of the country.
He warned that this way of thinking could erode social values and moral principles.