P1 billion on coffee a reasonable amount | Inquirer News
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P1 billion on coffee a reasonable amount

/ 12:47 AM July 28, 2011

AT FIRST glance, P1 billion is a huge amount that the previous administration of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) spent on coffee alone.

But if you take another look at it and do honest-to-goodness arithmetic—minus the emotions—you will see that P1 billion spent on coffee over a period of nine years was quite reasonable, according to my source at Pagcor.

Pagcor has 13 branches all over the country which operate on a 24-hour basis all year round, except on Good Friday and Black Saturday.

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If you divide P1 billion by nine years—the period covered by the audit—you get P111,111,111.11.

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The amount of P111,111,111.11 will be divided by 13—for the number of Pagcor branches—and the dividend amounts to P8,547,008.55.

Dividing P8,547,008.55 by 365—the number of days in a year—gives you P23,416.46.

P23,416.46 divided by 24—the number of hours in a day—is P947.68.

The P947.68 is equivalent to nine cups of coffee which an average player (gambler) consumes in 24 hours.

That’s only P105.29 per cup.

Coffee from classy Figaro, which was served the guests during the period, costs more than P100 a cup, according to the Pagcor source.

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So, the P1 billion for coffee spent for nine years on casino guests is reasonable, based on the arithmetic of the Pagcor source.

* * *

The source said the P1 billion spent on guests belonged to the guests themselves.

“You see, big losers are given a five percent rebate in chips, should they choose to play again to recoup their losses, or in food,” the source said.

A player who lost P100,000, for example, gets a rebate of P5,000 which he can spend on food (including coffee) in the casino or he can play again.

There are 15,000 to 25,000 people who play daily in the Pagcor-run casinos.

* * *

Former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is about to undergo spine surgery at St. Luke’s Medical Center, Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City.

Nobody can heal her condition but herself.

Diseases or illnesses have mental equivalents, according to Louise Hays, author of the best-selling book “You Can Heal Yourself.”

That is also what George Sison, a local transformational guru, says about disease or illness.

GMA’s spine illness has many mental equivalents. These include fear, confusion, resentment, taking the blame for others (one of them probably her husband, Mike Arroyo), repressed anger, fear of ridicule and humiliation and burden overload.

* * *

The accident on the Skyway at the South Luzon Expressway took place because there are no traffic enforcers to monitor overspeeding and reckless drivers.

What’s the police Highway Patrol Group doing?

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There have been many fatal accidents on the South and North Luzon Expressways, as well as on the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway, because of the absence of the men of the Highway Patrol in those highways.

TAGS: Arroyo, coffee, featured columns, Metro, News, Pagcor, spine surgery

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