Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 7) — Quezon City Rep. Jesus Suntay has questioned Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s lack of action when it comes to improving the lotto playing system.
During the House of Representatives committee on appropriations budget hearing for the agency, Suntay asked PCSO General Manager Royina Garma why they haven’t bought a new system for lotto since the initial contract that started in 1995 already ended in 2003. If they cannot look for a new contractor, PCSO should have just negotiated for better terms, he added.
Garma confirmed that the contract for two companies already expired, but when they were ready for another bidding, one of the companies filed a temporary restraining order versus the agency. She noted that this was only resolved early-2019.
After winning the case, they held a bidding middle of that year, but that failed due to requirement issues with the winning bidder.
Garma says with the pandemic, they are now planning to conduct another bidding by end-2020 or January next year.
In response, Suntay said PCSO should have just stopped lotto operations if that was the case, but Garma said they cannot do so since more than 9,000 betting agents will be affected. Suntay said this is the problem with PCSO
They will also have to return all machines and terminals to the contractor, she said.
For the new contract, she said they will be unbundling the machine and terminals from the contractor so they do not have to depend on it. She said they also considering other betting systems like mobile applications to have alternatives.
Lotto is one of the highest revenue-generating games of PCSO, earing ₱31.87 billion, ₱ 31.9 billion, and ₱21.3 billion in 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively.
In June, PCSO said since the start of the lockdown, it has already lost ₱13 billion since its lotto, Keno, and digit games suspended operations as per the order of President Rodrigo Duterte with the implementation of strict community quarantine in March. These three games already resumed operations last July.
