PCSO employees wear red to protest move to privatize lotto

MANILA, Philippines—Employees of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office launched Friday a silent protest against Senator Franklin Drilon’s proposal to privatize the agency’s lottery operations.

Almost 95 percent of the employees at the PCSO main office at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City wore red shirts carrying statements that reflect their sentiments, said Chris Bautista, president of the agency’s employees’ union.

“We intend to do this every Friday and eventually, we will include employees assigned in PCSO offices in the provinces,” he told the Inquirer in a phone interview.

The PCSO employees union has over 1,500 members.

The slogans written on their shirts included “No to privatization,” “Yes to cautious investigation and disposition of cases,” “Yes to reforms,” “No to corruption, misuse and abuse of PCSO funds,” “No to tarnishing PCSO image,” “No to corruption,” “Yes to Charter improvement,” “Yes to medical assistance to charitable institutions and indigents.”

Drilon earlier said that the lotto operations should be privatized to prevent misuse of government intelligence funds supposedly to curb the illegal numbers game “jueteng.”

He said that once the lottery is privatized, the government would then serve as a regulatory agency that will simply collect a set franchise fee from whoever will win the bidding to operate the lotto.

PCSO is the operator and regulator of gambling in the Philippines. Aside from lotto, it operates sweepstakes and races to raise funds for health programs, medical assistance and services, and other charity works.

It is currently under fire following allegations of questionable spending of intelligence funds, advertising overspending and giving of luxury vehicles to Catholic bishops during the Arroyo administration.

Bautista, assigned at the agency’s internal audit department, said the PCSO management had been informed about their move.

“Maghinay-hinay daw kami kasi baka mas mapabilis pa daw yung plano na isa-pribado ang PCSO [They told us to go easy on our actions because this might only speed up plans to privatize the agency],” he said.

“But we’re doing this as part of our freedom of expression. We want to show solidarity as an institution,” he said, adding that they were ready to take more drastic action if the privatization plan pushed through without them being consulted.

Bautista said they opposed Drilon’s proposal because of various reasons, including the possibility of employees losing their jobs.

“For sure the private company will hire their own employees. So what will now happen to us?” he said.

“Senator Drilon wants government to bid out PCSO operations and collect fixed franchise fees that go directly to the national treasury. That means lawmakers will be the ones to decide how these funds should be allocated. But they may allocate these funds for other purposes, that’s not far-fetched. If that happens, what will happen to the poor and other charitable institutions that depend on PCSO? Isn’t the main mandate of the PCSO to provide medical assistance to indigent Filipinos? This proposal is very disadvantageous for them,” Bautista added.