THE government’s P20-million daily loss from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office is mainly due to the Small Town Lottery program which was abused by the Aquino administration, Malacañang said Friday.
After President Rodrigo Duterte revealed that the government is losing more than P20 million a day, Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said that the government is eyeing solutions to revive the cases of underreporting of revenue.
“It was Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre who gave the report about the Small Town Lottery. He noted that it was being abused in the previous administration,” Andanar said in an interview over radio dzXL.
“The government is supposed to have large revenues but they were diminished because of the inaccurate reporting and bad remittance procedures,” he added.
On Thursday, Duterte said that he cannot allow corruption to thrive inside the state lottery system, being racheted by goons.
“As a matter of fact, this Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office was turned into a pig sty by these syndicates and gangsters, the lotto was used to cover up jueteng. They were granted a right by the previous government and they merged it,” Duterte said in his speech at Camp Tecson in Bulacan.
“We are losing about P20 million a day because they are reporting less,” Duterte said after appointing former police general Jose Jorge Corpuz as the new chairman of the state lottery agency.
In an interview, Corpuz said the STL has “very big potential” that can be tapped to generate more revenue to buy more medicine, but the programs needed rationalization and an overhaul.
“We will look into how we can improve our product,” Corpuz said, stressing the need to check the implementing rules and regulations of STL, review alleged cases of underreporting and look into its loopholes.
Shortly after winning the presidency, Duterte said that he wanted a “killer” to replace former Cavite governor Erineo Maliksi, who was charged with graft over the extension of contracts for the lease of lottery terminals without public bidding.
“PCSO is a corrupt agency. I am looking for a killer to head this agency. Those bingo games that they hold, the lotto and ‘jueteng’ that is the racket,” he said.
