ILOILO – The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) is now accepting applications for prospective bidders of Small Town Lottery (STL) for the provinces of Iloilo (excluding Iloilo City), Cavite, Davao Occidental, and Masbate.
According to General Manager Alexander Balutan, applications for Iloilo and Cavite will be opened until June 15, 2018, 5 p.m. while those for Davao Occidental and Masbate is until June 8, 2018.
“We are going to fast-track the process of bidding to prevent illegal numbers game operators from putting up jueteng like what’s happening in other provinces. When there’s no legal operator, illegal operators come in. And they are out there to discredit PCSO’s STL program,” Balutan said.
Early this month, PCSO terminated the operation of the STL franchisee in Iloilo province, Eagle-Crest Gaming and Holding Corp, for failing to remit its Presumptive Monthly Retail Receipts (PMRR).
According to Balutan, interested applicants must submit complete documents to the STL Advisory Committee located at the 4th Floor, Sun Plaza Building, 605 Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila.
STL revenues have already contributed almost P8 billion in the P20.8-billion sales of PCSO from January to April this year that includes Lotto products, Keno and Sweepstakes, an increase of 29.30 percent from the same period last year.
It can be noted, however, that compared with last month’s earnings where STL earned P2 billion, it only earned P1.9 billion this April.
Balutan explained that the slight decrease was attributed to the termination of some Authorized Agent Corporations (AAC) for violating the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR).
“From 84, there are now 81 STL operators. We have to terminate erring AACs because of repeated violations of the STL-IRR, especially under-remittance of the Presumptive Monthly Retail Receipt (PMRR),” said Balutan.
The PCSO Board is now opening applications to replace these terminated AACs.
“We shall not hesitate to terminate more if they don’t pay the correct PMRR,” said Balutan.
Early this year, the PCSO had a consultative meeting with the AACs from all over the country to discuss some revisions of the IRR. It also aims to address issues and problems concerning the shortfalls of STL operators in their PMRR.
“For our part, we shall continue to support President Rodrigo Duterte’s all-out war against anti-illegal gambling by strengthening our IRR and completely eradicating jueteng, masiao, swertres, peryahan ng bayan, and all forms of illegal gambling,” said Balutan./PN
