MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang on Saturday said Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office board director Sandra Cam is free to resign after she appealed to President Rodrigo Duterte to remove her from her post as she flagged alleged corruption within the agency.
Cam, who was appointed in 2017, told reporters that she had just walked out of a special board meeting called by PCSO chairman and general manager Anselmo Simeon Pinili, a retired police general.
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She said she felt her fellow directors ganged up on her to compel her to reverse a recent revocation of PCSO Board Resolution 83 that gave recognition to a new set of officers of Speedgame Inc., the authorized agent corporation that operates the Small Town Lottery (STL) in Pangasinan.
In a statement, presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said Cam may file a complaint to the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission so Duterte can order “a full blown investigation” on her allegations.
“Duterte is beholden to no one. He will not spare even his close friends and long-time allies in his drive to weed out corruption in the bureaucracy. We repeat: There are no sacred cows in this administration,” Panelo said.
“We thus urge the likes of Ms. Cam to come forward and expose government sheenanigans and malfeasance if she knows any. We assure her and other whistleblowers that they have [Duterte’s] ears in this regard,” he added.
“As to Ms. Cam's request to relieve her in her present post, she does not have to wait for her relief by the President. She can tender her resignation if she cannot stand the alleged corruption within the PCSO,” he continued.
Cam said she opposed reversing the revocation as there was already a legal opinion issued by the Office of the General Corporate Counsel on the infirmities of the resolution.
She alleged that Speedgame owes the PCSO P132 million in monthly remittances of its presumptive monthly retail receipt (PMRR).
Cam also said the resolution recognized a new set of officers led by retired military general David Diciano, a classmate of Pinili’s chief of staff, retired police chief superintendent Ted Quiano.
She said the courts, not the PCSO, can rule on corporate disputes, which is what Resolution 83 seeks to resolve.
Cam said PCSO’s top officials are preoccupied with the STL, but not with collecting what STL operators owe the agency – they have a P10.7-billion shortfall in their PMRR remittance for the first five months of the year alone.
She alleged that dropping lotto revenues, caused by the competition brought by STL, and the shortfall in remittances by erring STL operators affect the “poor who ask help from the PCSO because there are no more funds to give them.” — with a report from The STAR/Rainier Allan Ronda