FIRING LINE: Gelo’s death spotlights injustice

By ROBERT B. ROQUE JR.

This is not how any of us would have guessed how an altar boy would lose in the game of life so early. Twenty-year-old Angelo “Gelo” dela Rosa contracted leptospirosis. He died quickly after wading through filthy floodwaters in search of his father, who had been missing for three days at the height of last month’s habagat onslaught.

His death made headlines because of the backstory of finding his father in jail. As Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David pointed out, the government that let flood control crumble and profit from the biggest gambling operations in the country is the same government that jailed Gelo’s father over a street game of cara y cruz.

The game has always been a pastime in bored neighborhoods, but was then banned in 1978 by a decree issued by then-strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos. Perhaps that was the era that taught us to go after small fry while letting the big fish swim freely. 

I give credit to Bishop David for sticking this point right into the heart of a dysfunctional system we all hoped would have improved from the lessons of the past administration—particularly the Duterte-era tokhang, an overkill of sorts that sprayed bullets at the poor while letting the architects of the drug trade breathe easy.

Gelo’s family says his father was not even gambling, merely standing near a coin-toss game on the sidewalk when police came fishing for arrests to pad their accomplishment reports. This exemplifies law enforcement at its laziest; when it jails men in slippers with a few pesos in their pockets while keeping its eyes shut to billion-peso rackets operating under state sanction.

Is it not the ultimate hypocrisy that the state, through PAGCOR, sanctions a vice industry that siphons money, fuels criminal syndicates, and corrodes lives far beyond the reach of any barangay street raid?

And while we’re on the subject of misplaced priorities, an even graver offense is the national government’s seemingly “back-to-zero” or “learning-as-you-go” approach to disaster response, especially when it comes to flooding. If this administration were truly prepared, rather than reactionary, why has it failed to lend a hand to hospitals and clinics swamped with leptospirosis cases after the waters receded?

This might not be highlighted in Gelo’s case, but, clearly, the predicament of people dying because of leptospirosis was seen in Ospital ng Maynila in the country’s capital. It well represents the fact that this administration was overwhelmed by the volume of leptospirosis patients.

To Mr. Marcos Junior, my two cents’ worth is that justice and preparedness are not seasonal projects but constant duties. And while your police come down on petty crimes like a sledgehammer, the scale of addiction that runs loose in online gambling platforms remains staggering. In the face of this societal damage, your last SONA, Mr. President, left it untouched or dismissed to later action.

So, here’s my humble challenge: If we must police gambling, let’s start at the top, not the gutter. Then, maybe, our laws will be worth more than just two cents.

*         *         *

SHORT BURSTS. For comments or reactions, email firingline@ymail.com or tweet @Side_View via X. Read current and past issues of this column at http://www.thephilbiznews.com