MANILA, Philippines–Many are called but only few are chosen, and this call center agent from Davao del Norte province will soon be ringing off after becoming one of the lucky few.
No more irate callers and graveyard shifts for him, as he just took home the more than P70-million jackpot prize in the lotto 6/55 draw on Nov. 24.
The 24-year-old bachelor is the lone winner. He picked the winning combination 06-08-11-26-27-29 to win P70,166,400.
Jose Ferdinand Rojas II, acting chair and general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), said the winner gave up his schooling to help his family recover from their financial woes.
For the past four years, whenever the winner had extra money, he would play the lotto, hoping to win and give his family a better life, Rojas said.
He said the winner spent P60 on the winning combination, which came from his father who used to play the lotto.
Rojas said the winner told him he intended to use his prize money to continue his studies, buy his family a house and lot, save up for his future and share a portion with the rest of the family.
He said the winner borrowed money from relatives in nearby provinces so he could travel to Manila to claim his prize.
It took him at least two weeks before he finally claimed his winnings on Tuesday at the PCSO head office in Mandaluyong, Rojas said.
According to Rojas, it is typical for lotto winners not to immediately claim their winnings.
The most common reasons, he said, are “the winner didn’t know he had won; for a provincial winner, he doesn’t have money to go to Manila; and that the winner wanted the public to forget that the prize money for a certain draw had already been won.”
In the case of the call center agent, he couldn’t just borrow money from neighbors because they might suspect that he had won the lotto, jeopardizing his family’s security, which Rojas said, was of high importance to the agency.
Originally posted: 8:58 PM | Thursday, December 11th, 2014
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