They were teachers, sweepers, firemen, clerks. The quiet spine of the republic. They gave it their summers without air conditioning, Christmases on duty, classrooms filled with too many kids and not enough chairs. They asked for little in return. Only enough to live on when the knees gave out.

The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) thanked them by torching over a billion pesos of their pension money on a gambling firm, bought at its peak, and tied to a sitting congressman.

The company is DigiPlus. GSIS bought in at P65.30. The stock now sits around P13.68. If you’re doing the mathematics, stop. It hurts.

Conflict of interest doesn’t even begin to cover it. This is state money funneled at high valuations into private corporate interests with political connections to a sector the state itself practically wants dead.

High-risk, high return? So is cocaine. But no one’s proposing we put retirees’ money in crystal just because it spikes. Yield is meaningless without conscience.

Due diligence? Let’s define terms. Due diligence means you looked at the numbers. Wisdom is asking whether a civilized society should stake a teacher’s pension on someone else’s addiction.

Legal? So is abandoning your grandmother. The law is the floor. This is the collapse of the ceiling, walls, and decency.

DigiPlus fits the pattern: high-risk, ethically radioactive, made with pension money by people insulated from the consequences.

GSIS plowed P1.4 billion into Alternergy: unlisted, broke, no board nod. Debt-to-equity is at 194 percent. Sen. Risa Hontiveros traced the fire back to the fuse and asked who lit it.

The Fund is still clinging to Del Monte Pacific. $2.3 billion in debt. Bleeding value. GSIS is nursing it like it’s a stubbed toe, when it’s a nicked artery.

That’s three reckless bets. All tanking. All made with pensioners’ money. In the private sector, someone would be fired. In a casino, banned. In government? Promoted.

GSIS posted big returns: P76.82 billion in net operating income and a five-year average ROI of 6.75 percent. But so do slot machines right before you lose the house. A high return on investment (ROI) is a mask. Behind it: recklessness, hidden, until it lands on you.

“The pensioners will still get paid.” That’s the line. The only ones still believing in this logic are the ones who will be dead when the bill arrives.

Every peso GSIS gambled betrayed the very people it was supposed to protect. People who served, sacrificed, and trusted that when their knees failed, the system would still be standing.

That is the heist.

They never missed a payment. Not once. Decades of deductions shaved off every paycheck surrendered in faith that the people in charge were better than this.

Casinos hand out free drinks for a reason: Hope is intoxicating. It makes people forget that the odds are never in their favor.

That’s what GSIS did. It played dealer with it. All in the name of “growth.” Of “strategy.”

What strategy? The people who gave you their money didn’t ask for the miracles of multiplying loaves and fishes. They asked for peace of mind. They asked that their last years be gentler than their first.

The people banned from casinos now foot the bill for bets they never placed, made by men who never lose, and never pay.