DepEd asks Duterte: Keep lotto away from schools

Education Secretary Leonor Briones has asked President Duterte to stop lotto outlets from being put up near schools lest this send a wrong signal to students.

Briones said she raised the matter in a recent Cabinet meeting, arguing that lotto outlets being allowed to open near campuses would contradict the values being taught to the students.

“In school you teach them honesty, discipline and the like. [But] then [the lotto outlets] give them hopes of becoming rich quickly, and you can see in the [queues] there would be a number of young people and even the parents of the children,” she said in an interview.

Briones did not say how far these establishments should be from schools. According to Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office regulations, lotto outlets should be at least 100 meters away from schools.

Briones also said the Department of Education (DepEd) would no longer accept donations from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor).

Pagcor last year allocated P10 billion to address DepEd’s classroom backlog.

Briones said she had returned the unspent balance of donations, running in the millions of pesos, without intending to “dishonor the previous executives” who had accepted the amounts. Even before she assumed the DepEd post, Briones had objected to the idea of sourcing funds from gambling to fill gaps in the
education sector.

“I have always been against gambling as a source of funding for development. The positive side is you raise money for development, but then it’s also antidevelopmental,” she said.