And we laughed at Fred Lim's awkward aphorism: "The law applies to all or none at all." His estranged Vice Mayor Isko Moreno was arrested along with other showbiz buddies during a police raid on a bingo game that was followed by a Twitter barrage claiming Fred Lim was behind the arrest. He was not, of course; mayors have no control of the police, the DILG does. And while the raid took Fred as much by surprise as it took Isko, Lim had a better retort to the arrest.

Isko claimed that he had gotten away with hosting bingo games for the past 5 years. Why arrest him only now? Answer: There is always a first time for everything.

Well, I myself am still trying to work out why someone would be arrested for bingo -- a popular pensioners' game, which Isko is not. It can't be argued that mahjong and poker games constitute illegal gambling. Because bingo is entirely a game of chance, whereas mahjong and poker make intellectual demands on strategic sense and total recall that qualify them as games of penultimate skill.

True, Isko has been hosting bingo games with impunity for the last 5 years and it is only now he was arrested. That you have been or were allowed to get away with a crime many times before does not mean it ceases to be criminal. Isko and his chums were eventually released, though the police will continue an investigation. There is a lesson to be learned here: don't do the crime if you don't want to do the time, however short. This may also constitute an election offense if everybody wins on the same evening. They call that vote-buying.

Keep well.