Valenzuela driver wins P9M lotto jackpot by betting on dates of loved ones’ deaths

MANILA, Philippines—A driver from Valenzuela City won the P9-million jackpot prize of the 6/45 lotto draw on Dec. 8 by betting on the numbers making up the dates of his loved ones’ deaths.

Jose Ferdinand Rojas II, acting chair and general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), said that the lone winner had been playing the lotto for the past 15 years. He got his winning combination 17-13-27-08-28-09 from the dates of his parents’, aunt’s and son’s deaths.

Rojas added that the father of three who only paid P40 for his winning ticket told him that he decided to bet on these dates because the memory of his loved ones kept on haunting him.

“I guess they helped me in asking the One above that I hit the jackpot in the lotto,” Rojas recalled the winner as saying.

The winner, who claimed his prize on Tuesday at the PCSO head office in Mandaluyong City, told Rojas that he would use the money to buy his family a house and lot, invest in a transportation business and save for the future.

Rojas reminded winners, especially those who have won in the agency’s January draws, that consolation and grand prizes should be claimed within a year since the date of winning. Unclaimed prizes revert to the PCSO’s charity fund.

The charity fund helps support the agency’s flagship Individual Medical Assistance Program, which in 2013 released almost P4 billion in medical- and health-related assistance, which subsidized the hospitalization bills, medicines and even transplants, among others, of indigent Filipinos.

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