BICOL lawmakers yesterday urged the House of Representatives to investigate operators of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s (PCSO) Small Town Lottery (STL) for various violations of their franchise, including allegedly acting fronts for the illegal numbers game jueteng.
The group led by Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte filed House Resolution No. 1566 urging the House Committee on Games and Amusements to look into the PCSO’s alleged inaction on the alleged irregularities of authorized agent corporations (AACs), which include falsifying sales reports to avoid paying the right amount of monthly remittances to the PCSO, the acceptance of bets from minors and hiring of kids as bet collectors.
In their resolution, the Bicol legislators cited the case of Evenchance Gaming Corp. in Camarines Sur which they said “has failed time and again to fully and timely remit the Guaranteed Minimum Monthly Retail Receipt (GMRRR) and has committed fraudulent misrepresentation in tampering with their sales report that only hovers around a specific number since they started operations.”
The co-authors of the resolution are Camarines Sur Reps. Miguel Luis Villafuerte and Tsuyoshi Anthony Horibata and Rep. Brian Raymund Yamsuan (PL, Bicol Saro).
Villafuerte, citing the revelation by former Sen. Panfilo Lacson in a Senate hearing in 2017, noted that around P48 billion a year is lost to gambling lords operating state-sanctioned STL outlets “and the reported remittances have hardly improved since then.”
In both HR 1566 and their earlier joint letter to President Marcos Jr. in December 2023, the lawmakers questioned the failure of the PCSO to take any action against Evenchance despite its “consistent and glaring” violations of its AAC from the time it acquired its franchise to operate in their province in 2017.
Villafuerte said he has repeatedly brought to the PCSO’s attention over the past seven years the glaring violations of Evenchance, “each of which warrant the revocation of its franchise.”
The resolution said the administration of the late President Corazon Aquino established “the first but unsuccessful” version of today’s STL on her watch which President Arroyo’s government revived in 2006 with the introduction of modern facilities and better prizes while jueteng “continued to persist.”
“The current version of the STL with the PCSO started in the administration of former President Duterte and is much more expansive than its previous versions to rid the country of illegal gambling by giving jueteng financiers a chance to become legitimate lottery operators,” the resolution said.
The lawmakers said the STL rules were refined when the PCSO eventually issued its Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations (RIRR) “but several irregularities and violations continue to be reported regarding the conduct of STL operations by AACs in violation of the rules.”
They said it has been “difficult to penalize much less disqualify AACs, most notably in CamSur, despite the blatant violation of rules and commission of various infractions.”
