Lawmakers cool to more ‘jueteng killer games’
MANILA, Philippines—Some lawmakers sound like they want to have their cake and eat it, too.
While representatives are turning to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) for medical subsidies for their constituents with the loss of their pork barrel allocations, they are not too keen on supporting a government drive to kill “jueteng,” the illegal numbers game of which lawmakers, local officials and police are believed to be the main benefactors.
According to PCSO Chair Margarita Juico and General Manager Jose Ferdinand Rojas II, the PCSO is expanding its lotto operations and rolling out more jueteng and “masiao killer games” this year amid pressure to boost revenues.
This will replace the void left by the abolition of the graft-ridden Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and provide jobs for a rising number of unemployed Filipinos.
But Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., chair of the House committee on games and amusement, said the PCSO would have a hard time getting public support for its expansion plans.
“They will be having additional games on the pretext that it will be for the benefit of the members of Congress [but] that would be a very unpopular argument,” Barzaga said on Sunday in a text message.
“No matter how noble is the intention of the PCSO, people will not accept the PCSO’s plan,” he added.
Juico said the PCSO planned to add another lotto game (6-58, with a minimum payout of P50 million) this year, expand its small town lottery (STL) operations, roll out new games that would compete directly with jueteng and masiao, and beef up its sweepstakes operations.
Jueteng is a two-digit numbers game popular in Luzon, while masiao is a three-digit numbers game popular in the Visayas and Mindanao.
Additional revenues
Juico said: “We are feeling the pressure to add to our revenues, especially because we expect more referrals for medical assistance from lawmakers who have lost their PDAF allocations. We also want to help the government address the growing unemployment in the country.”
Juico reported that while PCSO posted P32 billion in revenues from its gaming operations last year, it suffered P900 million in losses from the lotto outlets wiped out by political and natural disasters that struck Zamboanga City and Bohol, Samar and Leyte provinces, forcing it to cough up an additional P1 billion in calamity funds for these areas.
Rojas said the 6-58 lotto game—on top of the existing 6-42, 6-45, 6-49, 6-55, Suertres and EZ2 games—could easily yield P4 billion in additional revenues.
Rojas said the PCSO would run more sweepstakes draws this year to provide more opportunities for its ambulant vendors.
But Juico and Rojas were most excited about the prospects of the STL business currently operating in 14 provinces and four cities, with 142,700 registered sales agents and representatives.
New jobs
“Our goal is to cover the entire 80 provinces, which we expect will generate as much as one million new jobs with fixed income and commissions. But we can only expand if we get the concurrence of both the local government officials and the police,” said Rojas, who noted that many numbers games operating outside the STL franchises were considered illegal.
According to a report in the House of Representatives, STL has generated total sales of P21.63 billion from 2006 to 2013.
Of that amount, 30 percent, or P6.4 billion, went to the charity fund where the local officials get their share—10 percent to the municipal or city mayor, 2.5 percent to the representative, 5 percent to the provincial government and 5 percent to the national and local police.
“At this point, the STL’s earnings pale in comparison to the lotto. But we are optimistic we can cover the entire Philippines, especially if we get the governors, representatives, mayors and police on the same page,” Juico said.
Rojas said the most promising market was the Visayas-Mindanao area based on the superior sales of Suertres over EZ2 games. “But these areas also have the strongest resistance to our operations,” he said.
Congressmen opposed
Even before the PCSO could firm up its expansion program, some representatives had already opposed the PCSO’s plan to expand STL and roll out new games, specifically Bingo Milyonaryo, a lottery-type game that offers gamers five ways to win in one draw.
The House committee has supported the proposal of Laguna Rep. Dan Fernandez to suspend Bingo Milyonaryo because “STL already provides enough income to the PCSO and LGUs (local government units).”
Juico explained that Bingo Milyonaryo is still in its one-year experimental stage, ending in May this year, and that the rules will be tweaked to deal with the complaints of lawmakers.
She said Bingo Milyonaryo was churning less than P1 million a month from 25 territorial dealers and 500 retailers nationwide, and she doubted whether representatives or mayors would agree to get as little as P1,000 a month as their share from the operations.
Win-win solution
Rojas admitted that the PCSO still needed to strengthen the internal controls of STL to make it a “real killer” of jueteng and masiao.
He said some STL agents fell prey to gambling lords who offered them a higher share of their collections.
An STL operator, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic, said the PCSO was limited by its charter to pay out a maximum of 55 percent of its collections as prizes, compared with the 78 percent paid out by illegal gambling operators (who can afford higher prizes because they do not pay fixed wages and taxes).
Originally posted: 7:03 pm | Sunday, February 16th, 2014
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