CoA bares more PCSO scams

Besides supposedly buying expensive cars for priests, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) apparently has had other problematic transactions in 2009.

The Commission on Audit (CoA) said the PCSO was shortchanged in the Instant Scratch Ticket (IST) project since it only received part of its mandated share.

In turn, the PCSO’s beneficiaries—the sick and the poor—also got the short end of the stick.

The CoA also questioned the donation of most of its ambulances to richer local governments instead of the poorer ones, and said the PCSO’s anniversary draw was a dud because it ended up losing P77 million, instead of earning money.

In its 2009 report on the PCSO, the CoA said the charity agency was, under the law, supposed to receive 30 percent of the net receipts from the IST project. But under the short-term agreement with its distributors, it only received 15 percent of the ticket selling price.

The agreements also showed the PCSO share was not based on the aggregate value of the tickets sold but on the number of tickets sold. The PCSO’s 15-percent share during the project’s initial implementation was also reduced to 7.5 percent for tickets sold for P20, and 3 percent for tickets worth P50, said the CoA.