TACLOBAN CITY — A radio station in Borongan, Eastern Samar province, was barraged with calls on Monday from residents asking for goodwill money from one of the two winners of the biggest lotto jackpot.
“There were text messages from our listeners asking for balato from the winner, and there is a joke [going around] the city that if one [is] unfriended, [the initiator is] the winner,” said Penelope Pomeda, a reporter for Radyo dyES.
The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) does not disclose the identities of lotto winners for their protection.
P240-million tax
The winner from Borongan will split the P1.18-billion jackpot in the UltraLotto 6/58 draw on Sunday with the other winner, who is from Legazpi City in Albay province.
The two bettors correctly picked the winning six-number combination 40-50-37-25-01-45 to become the newest millionaires in the Philippines.
Each of them will get only P472.25 million, however, because 20 percent of the jackpot, or P240 million, will go to the government as tax.
That leaves the “balikbayan” from Olongapo City who won the Grand Lotto 6/55 game in November 2010 still the biggest winner. The winner took home P741 million tax-free.
The Duterte administration slapped a 20-percent tax on winnings higher than P10,000 from lotto and other PCSO games starting in January.
Sales boost
A PCSO official, who requested not to be named, said the agency was glad one of the winners of Sunday’s draw was from Borongan, as it would boost sales at the lotto outlet there.
The winner from Borongan placed his 6/58 bet at a lotto outlet outside the city proper that the PCSO official said had been suffering from low sales since the government slapped a documentary stamp tax on each ticket, raising its price from P20 to P24.
The outlet on Limbauan Street at Barangay H owned by Ma. Myra C. Locando will receive P400,000 as commission, the PCSO official said.
Stroke of luck
The lotto outlet at SM City in Legazpi City owned by Lucky Circle Corp. where the other winning ticket was sold would get the same commission.
It was a great stroke of luck for Lucky Circle, said Jenny Rose Alongongon, a sales specialist there: The outlet opened for business just on Friday.
Luck also smiled on 100 other bettors who got five of the six numbers in the winning combination right.
They will each get P169,930—minus the 20-percent tax.
In a statement, PCSO General Manager Alexander Balutan congratulated the winners and advised them to use their money wisely.
Use winnings wisely
“[W]inning millions of pesos can change your outlook in life, lifestyle and priorities. Mind your priorities,” Balutan said.
The winners have one year to collect their winnings at the PCSO main office on Shaw Boulevard in Mandaluyong City.
Sixty-two-year-old Catalina Nepomuceno of Legazpi City was not unhappy that she was not a winner.
She said she played lotto for charity.
“If it is my time to win the jackpot, then it is my time to win,” she said.
Statisticians estimate that there are more than 40 million possible combinations in the UltraLotto 6/58 game and a single ticket has a 0.00000274-percent chance of winning. —Reports from Joey A. Gabieta, Michael B. Jaucian and Dexter Cabalza