LPs overcome ‘kamag-anak’ in PCSO power play

By: Gil C. Cabacungan - 11 years ago

Resigned PCSO Chair Margarita Juico apparently quit because President Aquino shared Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas’ disapproval of Bingo Milyonaryo, which was operated by Comnet Management Corp., a company that has ties to former Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) chair Antonio “Tonyboy” Cojuangco, the President’s second cousin and biggest contributor to his 2010 presidential campaign, giving P100 million. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

MANILA, Philippines—“Kapartido” (partymate) has prevailed over “kamag-anak” (family) in the management shake-up at the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) triggered by a furor over a lottery game, Bingo Milyonaryo, which has allegedly morphed into a front for gambling lords and political kingpins.

Resigned PCSO Chair Margarita Juico apparently quit because President Aquino shared Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas’ disapproval of Bingo

Milyonaryo, which was operated by Comnet Management Corp., a company that has ties to former Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) chair Antonio “Tonyboy” Cojuangco, the President’s second cousin and biggest contributor to his 2010 presidential campaign, giving P100 million.

“Last year, P-Noy (the President’s nickname) asked me to look into Bingo Milyonaryo. I recall I advocated a change in the way Bingo Milyonaryo was being designed [because it was very similar to lotto-small town lottery] so as to remove the camouflage effect [when the ‘legal game’ masks or serves to cover up ‘jueteng’] the illegal numbers game,” Roxas said in a text message explaining the President’s misgivings about the project.

Angry memo

Aquino made his stand known to Juico on June 11 last year in a memorandum castigating her for refusing to cooperate with Roxas, who had been tasked to investigate Bingo Milyonaryo after the game’s debut on May 30, also last year.

The President said in his memo to Juico: “It is therefore both disappointing and embarrassing to know that an agency directly attached to the Office of the President has refused to respond to formal and reasonable requests coming from the Secretary of the Interior and Local Government who is considered an alter-ego of the President himself. I find PCSO’s refusal inexcusable and unjustified considering that these requests are proper and legitimate, guided by instructions from the President.”

Aquino also said that “any unjustified failure or refusal to comply with these requests shall be dealt with more severely.”

Roxas, head of the ruling Liberal Party (LP), said he could not recall what specific information he was trying to obtain from Juico, as “it’s been a year” since the President ordered him to investigate Bingo Milyonaryo.

Roxas explained: “I was asking (for information) because P-Noy instructed me to look into what Bingo Milyonaryo was all about after he heard or read about it. The matter became moot because as I understand, it did not push through. Other than this, I have had no other dealing with Chairperson Margie.”

He added, “It was purely an information gathering so I could answer his questions and report to him.”

Not eased out

Juico has not replied to the Inquirer’s calls or text messages. She resigned last week, citing family and personal health reasons and not because she was eased out by Roxas.

An LP member, former Cavite Gov. Erineo “Ayong” Maliksi, is expected to take Juico’s place at the PCSO.

Roxas said he was not aware of allegations that Juico’s husband, Philip, was the motor behind the rollout of Bingo Milyonaryo as a fundraiser for the 2016 presidential run of Vice President Jejomar Binay, a longtime ally of Aquino’s uncle, Jose “Peping” Cojuangco.

PCSO General Manager Jose Ferdinand Rojas II said he was not aware of those allegations either, but added he would “try to find out.”

Rojas said the PCSO management was initially hesitant to give Bingo Milyonaryo documents because it was unsure whether it was dealing with an official agent of the interior secretary. Once this was sorted out, Rojas said the PCSO duly complied with Roxas’ request for information.

But instead of pulling the plug on Bingo Milyonaryo, the PCSO went ahead with the rollout.

Game to proceed

Rojas rebutted Roxas’ claim saying: “We did not inform him (Roxas) that Bingo Milyonaryo will not proceed.”

Roxas, however, was adamant that at the time of his investigation, he was told that the PCSO would not push through with the game.

“So there was no order from P-Noy to follow up or anything. That is why I made no further action,” he said.

Retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz said he was not surprised that the President’s officials would fight over Bingo Milyonaryo, as the stakes were high.

Cruz said that with earnings of P50 billion a year, jueteng lords will have the money to buy votes or bankroll a candidate’s campaign or influence the appointment of police chiefs in their areas.

Licenses given out

“The PCSO has made the illegal legal, which is why gambling is everywhere. When we asked him (the President) if he wanted jueteng stopped, he told us it was not his priority,” Cruz said in a phone interview.

“As a general rule, people don’t fight over jueteng as long as the division of the spoils is acceptable to all. There is a disagreement only if one group gets greedy and wants to take everything,” he said.

In a public hearing called by the House committee on games and amusement in January, Rojas reported that Bingo Milyonaryo had given licenses to 25 territorial dealers and more than 500 retailers for the lottery game, which would give bettors a chance to win five ways in one draw.

Rojas also told the committee about the advantages of using the Lottocell, a mobile platform app that enables the sale of tickets anywhere and anytime. Lottocell is owned by Comnet, believed to be controlled by the President’s second cousin.

Both Roxas and Rojas were quiet on the general perception that Bingo Milyonaryo’s operator has ties with a presidential relative.

Cojuangco did not reply to the Inquirer’s calls and text messages.

Comnet

Research by the Inquirer showed that Comnet was established in May 1999 with former PLDT vice president Cesar Reyes, a protégé of Cojuangco, as its head.

Reyes used to be the president of Philippine Multi-Media System Inc. (PMSI), operator of Dream Satellite TV, which was widely known as Cojuangco’s baby even though he does not own stocks in the company on paper.

PMSI’s controlling shareholders are Genshare Holdings Corp. and Websphere Resources Inc. both of which were incorporated by partners and lawyers of Herrera Teehankee and Cabrera law office, the firm that handled Cojuangco’s sale of ABC 5 to businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan.

Aside from Reyes, there are two Comnet officials with ties to Cojuangco’s PMSI: Comnet original incorporator Emmanuel S. Paunan is PMSI vice president, while Vicente Gregorio is corporate secretary of both Comnet and PMSI.

Capital raised

Three months before getting the Bingo Milyonaro license from state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), Comnet raised its capital to P500 million and amended its articles of incorporation to add management of gaming operations as one of its businesses.

In its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission last year, Comnet listed its address as 9th floor, DPC Place Building, Makati City, where most of Cojuangco’s businesses—including PMSI and Directories Philippines Corp. (publisher of a yellow pages directory)—have their offices.

In a phone interview, Comnet CEO Benedicto Bulatao said he replaced Reyes four years ago when a new and obscure firm, Dallas Holdings Inc., bought

into the company. Like Reyes, Bulatao is an incorporator of Comnet and a former PLDT executive.

According to its SEC filing, Dallas Holdings was incorporated in September 2011 with Reynaldo San Luis Perez controlling virtually 100 percent of the company. Although it listed its address as 249 Quirino Highway, Baesa, Quezon City, it had a Makati phone number.

Sour grapes

Bulatao claimed that Comnet had dealt with all of the concerns raised by lawmakers and dismissed the grumblings as sour grapes from gambling lords whose multibillion-peso livelihood was threatened by Bingo Milyonaryo which, like the Bingo Two-Ball program initiated by Charlie “Atong” Ang under the Estrada administration, was being groomed as a legal replacement for jueteng and “masiao,” another illegal numbers racket.

“I believe that complaints that our operators are just fronts for jueteng operators are just isolated cases. Also, they should address their complaints to the PCSO, we (Comnet) are just the system operator. We are surprised why the local government units reacted that way,” Bulatao said.

Comnet originally obtained the five-year Bingo Milyonaryo franchise on Nov. 10, 2009, from former Pagcor chair Ephraim Genuino and started operations three months later.

Transferred to PCSO

Due to grumblings from Congress in 2011, however, Pagcor was forced to transfer Bingo Milyonaryo in December 2012 to the PCSO, the operator of state lotteries.

The PCSO board approved Resolution No. 412 in January 2013 authorizing Comnet to provide the game system, sell and distribute Bingo Milyonaryo for one year (three draws per day).

With the PCSO’s deed of authority to sell, Comnet was exempted from securing barangay (village) or mayor’s permit and payment of license fees to local governments for its Bingo Milyonaryo games (just like other PCSO games such as lotto, sweepstakes, keno and small-town lottery).