Judging from the desperate pleas for help in a chat group for recovering Filipino online gambling addicts, a serious social cancer and public health crisis is upon us.

In one distressing post a newspaper reported, a recidivist chat group member named “M” nonchalantly wrote “I can’t take this anymore. Adios! See you in paradise.” A little later, “M’s” partner told the group “M” was “gone.”

And, in an even more miserable post, a 39-year-old pregnant mother of two confessed she had gambled and lost her last P2,500 intended for infant milk and food.

These all-too-human e-gambling confessions are but a few of the many reported and unreported personal tragedies out there, making the pestilential online gambling issue very real, to the hysterical anxiety of the public, church leaders, lawmakers and even the Chief Executive himself.

All are now scrambling for viable answers to the latest pernicious social crisis. Grandiloquent lawmakers, for instance, finding out there is no online gambling law, have either proposed more stricter regulations or the outright banning of the technically sophisticated multi-billion business of online gambling.

But the undue focus on digital technologies and huge revenues of online gambling, as well as fears of a brewing social disaster, establish only some aspects of the gambling issue. Other crucial aspects are also present, particularly the brewing mental health crisis.

None of the anti-gambling proposals, except for one or two, for instance, underscores the fact that the addictive online gambling is like any other form of addiction: a major public mental health issue needing serious intervention from the government and the medical establishment.

Curiously, health professionals, including even the touring Health Secretary, have nothing urgent to say about the growing number of online gambling addicts.

No one knows exactly how many gambling addicts there are now. But it is probable that millions of all ages are victims, together with an equal number desperately trying to lick their gambling habit on their own without medical help.

Anyway, being keenly aware of the plight of online gambling victims now allows us to safely proceed to understanding the general contours of Filipino gambling. Or why we’re all historically conflicted about gambling and why online gambling is now what it is.

Historical inquiries tell us we Filipinos have always been chronic gamblers. We need not, however, dig deep into our past. Suitable it is on this easy Sunday to tell of gambling vignettes involving national heroes Jose Rizal and Andres Bonifacio.

Ilustrado Rizal, says historian Ambeth Ocampo, was a lotto aficionado, frequently betting during his European sojourn. And, during his Dapitan exile, Rizal in fact won the lotto.

Revolutionary Bonifacio, on the other hand, demanded that Katipuneros swear against gambling on pain of severe punishment or expulsion.

From both heroes’ experiences we can readily perceive the conflict we Filipinos have regarding gambling: to tolerate it or to ban it.

Gambling persists in these times when it migrated to sophisticated internet-enabled smartphones.

There is an interesting pandemic backstory on how many came to virtual gambling on phone-based casinos.

Online gambling boomed when everyone was on home exile and many discovered online gambling, particularly “e-sabong,” an attractive and easy form of personal entertainment. “E-sabong,” in fact, is largely credited with jumpstarting the e-gambling boom.

Instrumental also to e-gambling’s popularity was the growing use of “e-wallets” which made betting and winning easier and faster.

Both lawmakers and government finance policy makers are now laser focused on the easy access to online casinos using e-wallets. But they have yet to agree and settle on prudent and practical solutions to the online gambling scourge.