Lawmaker hits PCSO over aid to rich patients

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) executives are allowing rich patients to take advantage of financial assistance meant for poor patients, Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. of Dasmariñas City in Cavite said yesterday.

“I have information that some members of the PCSO board have been giving financial aid of at least P200,000 each to their affluent relatives and friends who get sick,” he told reporters, adding that only poor patients should be getting financial assistance from the gaming agency.

He said several of these rich patients had been confined at an expensive private hospital in Quezon City.

Barzaga chairs the House of Representatives games and amusement committee, which has launched an investigation into how PCSO has been using its charity fund.

The committee has subpoenaed the records of the charity fund, including financial assistance of at least P200,000 and its recipients and a list of patients confined in expensive hospitals.

The committee has also subpoenaed the income and remittance reports of small-town lottery (STL) operators.

During a hearing of the Barzaga committee on Tuesday, PCSO board chairman Erineo Maliksi bared plans for the allocation of at least P1 billion as the agency’s charity fund to help poor patients.

He told the panel that he wants to revamp and fine-tune the agency’s STL project and put it under PCSO’s control.

“I want to reorganize it so we can allot more charity funds for poor, sick people, consistent with the administration’s goal of helping marginal sectors,” he said.

STL legitimizing jueteng?

However, Maliksi lamented that his colleagues in the PCSO board are blocking his initiative.

He said many STL operators are themselves jueteng lords or otherwise involved in illegal gambling activities.

He noted frequent complaints from policemen that they could not arrest jueteng collectors because they carry identification cards signed by PCSO’s STL franchise holders.

Evidently, STL operators who are jueteng lords are using their legitimate permits to continue engaging in illegal gambling activities, collecting bets both for their STL and jueteng operations, he said.

He added that in some cases, the jueteng aspect is even bigger than the STL side of a franchisee’s gaming operation.

This is the reason why the PCSO is not getting as much revenue as it should from its STL project, he stressed.

Maliksi projected that with PCSO itself controlling and running its small-town lottery project, income would increase by at least three times.

“This means that our charity fund will correspondingly increase to at least P1 billion from the present P320 million,” he said.

He told congressmen that they are receiving requests for financial assistance amounting to at least P18 million a day from poor patients.

“At the Lung Center in Quezon City, where PCSO has a satellite office, patients have had to sleep overnight, sometime for three nights, just to be able to queue for assistance,” he said.

During a previous hearing, a Commission on Audit representative informed the Barzaga committee that STL revenues are not subject to audit.