Only in the Philippines!

Former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada said on Tuesday the only fact from Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson’s privilege speech at the Senate was his account of their policy differences over the illegal numbers game, jueteng.

“Isa lang ang totoo doon, iyong tungkol sa jueteng. Ang sabi ko sa kanya, unahin niya muna ang kidnapping, droga, carnapping. Iyong jueteng pinapa-legalize yan (There is only one thing true about his statement, the one about jueteng. I told him to first focus on kidnapping, drugs and carnapping because jueteng is in the process of being legalized),” Estrada said on ABS-CBN’s morning show Umagang Kay Ganda.


He said that during his term, studies were done which showed there were 163,000 families from regions 1 to 5 whose livelihood came from the jueteng.

“Kung aalisin mo yung jueteng, saan pupunta yung mga kubrador diyan? Paano nila susustentuhan ang pamilya nila (If you stop jueteng operations, where will the collectors go? How could they support their families),” he said, recalling his discussions with then police officer Lacson.

Estrada denied his family benefited from jueteng.

He said he wanted to legalize jueteng because “kailangan matulungan ang ating mga mahihirap na kababayan na iyan lang ang kabuhayan (we have to help our poor countrymen whose livelihood depends on jueteng)."