Assessing the All-Out Battle Against Illegal Gambling: From the Lens of the Stakeholders

Abstract

The article wants to know what the security forces, the local officials, and the community think about the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) all-out campaign against illegal gambling in Quezon City. Effort made had the main purpose to check the level of implementation by the campaign, unveil its impact on safety and public trust, and pinpoint problems encountered by the authorities. The publication embraces the employment of an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design that involves a structured survey of 45 barangays, interviews, and focus group discussions among selected participants. Quantitative outcomes disclose the perception of police officers, who felt that the campaign was highly implemented, while the opinion of barangay officials and residents was, respectively, at a moderate level. The statistical tests indicated no significant differences in public perception, safety, gambling, or trust, thus the null hypothesis was maintained across all variables. These results point out to a campaign, the effects of which may have been minimal, not sufficiently sustained, or even not quite well captured by the instruments used. The qualitative data uncovered the structural problems such as limited resources, weak relations between agencies, the acceptance of gambling as a part of the culture and the protection of operators by politics which are common reasons of the campaign's low effectiveness. The combination of the results from the quantitative and the qualitative studies suggests that strict law enforcement only is not sufficient in getting rid of gambling, which is a problem that is economically deeply rooted and culturally entrenched. The research decides that serious trouble in the long run will require all the stakeholders working together, using prevention methods that reflect the culture, and combining economic assistance programs. These revelations of truth by the authors make a valuable contribution to debates on how to design anti-gambling interventions that not only eliminate gambling but also win trust among the public that the law enforcement agencies are doing their jobs well.