Congressmen from the Bicol region on Friday pressed their call for the House of Representatives to investigate the alleged failure of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) to get rid of authorized agent corporations (AACs) or operators of its Small Town Lottery (STL) that have been violating provisions of their franchises.
In House Resolution 1566, Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte and three fellow Bicolanos cited major violations committed by errant AACs — being grounds for a call for a congressional inquiry on the PCSO’s inaction are these franchisees acting as mere fronts for the illegal numbers game jueteng.
Villafuerte’s resolution was adopted by CamSur Reps. Miguel Luis Villafuerte and Tsuyoshi Anthony Horibata, along with Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Brian Raymund Yamsuan.
In the resolution, the congressmen alleged that the errant AACs falsified their actual sales reports to dodge paying the right amount of monthly remittances to the PCSO as set in their agency agreements (AAs) or permits to operate, and acceptance of bets from minors plus hiring kids as their bet collectors.
The lawmakers asked the House in HR 1566 to direct its Committee on Games and Amusements to investigate, in aid of legislation, “the continued operation of AACs that allegedly commit irregularities and abuses in the conduct of STL by the PCSO.”
In their resolution, they pointed out that in their home province, for example, “Evenchance Gaming Corp. in Camarines Sur 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.”
Citing the revelation by then-Senator Panfilo Lacson in a Senate hearing in 2017, Villafuerte said 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 in December 2023, Villafuerte and the three more resolution authors questioned the failure of the PCSO to take any action till now against its accredited operator Evenchance despite its “consistent and glaring” violations of its AAC from the time it acquired its franchise to operate in their province in 2017.