Keep it simple, stupid

Time to disabuse our minds from the drowning waves of news reportage about Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) in radio, TV, prints, social media platforms. Let’s employ the KISS (“keep it simple, stupid”) method to understand why news is too-hyped up the way it shouldn’t be.

Viewed on a higher plane, there was failure on only two fronts, namely: 1) law enforcement and 2) regulatory governance. Often, we have heard members of Congress invoke the notion of “command responsibility” although it is of uncertain validity whether doctrinal military jargon extends to the civil service as well.

Maybe it should since both law enforcement authorities and regulators should be at commanding heights or in full “command and control” to problems cropping up. In tandem, they can exercise power and authority over entities or personalities they should be monitoring, keeping in line, and regulating.

Given that POGOs are largely law enforcement and regulatory issues, why not leave the whole affair to the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) to generally curb inefficiencies, multiplicities, and redundancies? As the saying goes: “Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor,” where both are in the best position for such simple bilateral tasks.

This way, we don’t need to employ the whole clueless legion of local government officials, untrained police or law enforcement personnel, poor elements of the military baffled about what the threat was all about, non-performing immigration agents vulnerable to bribes, raiders who hardly exhibit best practice in the “chain of custody” in so far as evidence is concerned (e.g. unthinkingly breaking doors, entries, money vaults). Again, keep it simple, stupid!

Take heed from the classic lesson that “too many cooks spoil the broth.” Imagine a legislature or senators and congressmen whose views are bursting with flames, their flight of ideas knowing no bounds, and espousing advocacies that scholars have not even written about.

This total disregard for a “vetting process” is what makes policy reforms meaningless lip service. It seems ontologically sound but pragmatically useless in what always unfolds as a perennial disconnect between the problem and the desired solution.

There’s also a whole concern about how mainstream media — being owned and run by oligarchs and elites — chose to project how burning issues should be scoped and framed. For instance, a leading daily has never run out of news accounts on POGOs and probably had the most published pieces on the same; presumably attuned to its corporate interest or class bias.

The bureaucracy is obviously poor in agenda-setting, always apparently walking or running through the maze, not knowing where to circle back, much less to find a graceful exit. Government exists simply because it is trapped when left to its own devices.

Good governance has become a rather oxymoronic concept in our contemporary political milieu. Not even colleges or centers professing to be well-grounded on this subfield can articulate what kind of creature it is except as mere balderdash.

Former President Rodrigo Duterte could not have seriously erred when he saw the potential fiscal space in allowing POGOs that generate billions of pesos to fill government coffers. Or why not revisit Leechiu’s economic worldview that the government think-tank failed to debunk?

Two things must be said. Firstly, we must subscribe to the view of strengthening law enforcement and immigration control to preclude negative externalities or that which accounts for criminality and its rising social impact.

Secondly, the conflicting roles of PAGCOR as a market regulator, revenue collector, and market participant, studies show, create “regulatory loopholes” in the case of POGOs (i.e. anonymity of ownership and clientele). Further, PAGCOR grossly lacks the agency to keep abreast with the “sophisticated” nature of the online gaming business and therefore, how can it best regulate internet-based entities?

PAGCOR must wear the stronger suit through aggressive capacity building if it is going to be a no-nonsense regulator of POGOs. Verily, effective law enforcement and efficient regulatory control are all that matter.