Achiever

Not a few were dismayed that PCSO chairman Jose Jorge Corpuz tendered his irrevocable resignation last Friday. He is certainly one of the achievers among the crop of Duterte appointees in tandem with General Manager Alexander Balutan.

Aware of the extent to which corruption has penetrated this agency, the President put in a former police general and a former Marine officer to bring some order to the PCSO. The two men turned in a sterling performance.

The PCSO’s gross retail receipts from its operations for 2017 was P53 billion. That is a stunning improvement in the agency’s gross receipts of P37 billion in 2016.

The dramatic improvement certainly did not come from a sudden expansion in clientele. It is due to curtailing leakages in the agency’s potential income. That translates into a proportional decline in the cash take of traditional gambling lords.

Surely the gambling lords are not happy with a reduction in their cash take. Unable to compete with the PCSO’s gaming operations, their only option is to be part of the action in these operations. To achieve that, they need to shake the tree a bit and break the reformist momentum of the Corpuz-Balutan tandem.

Larger PCSO earnings benefit the poor mainly.

The PCSO’s flagship Individual Medical Assistance Program (IMAP), which extends financial assistance to needy Filipinos, expanded in proportion to the surge in the agency’s earnings. In 2017, the IMAP helped 415,000 patients with their medical and hospitalization needs. That is nearly 100,000 more than those served in 2016. The assistance program last year cost the PCSO P8 billion.

The most remarkable improvement in the PCSO’s earnings happened in the Small-Town Lottery (STL) operations, touted as the effective antidote to illegal gambling operations such as jueteng.

In 2017, STL revenues grew a whopping 144 percent over the previous year. STL receipts last year amounted to P15.7 billion, up from the P6 billion receipts the previous year.

Sweepstakes receipts climbed dramatically to P22.5 billion in 2017 from just P10 billion in 2016. Not to be outdone, Keno receipts grew to P5.3 billion from only P4.3 billion in 2016.

This begs the question: If earnings could be so dramatically improved in so short a time, what happened to the money the PCSO should have made through the length of the previous administration?

Beneficiaries

During 2017, the PCSO introduced the At Source Ang Processing (ASAP) desk to quickly process IMAP applications. There are 57 ASAP desks nationwide. Indigent patients do not have to travel all the way to Manila to get financial assistance from the PCSO. This explains the double-digit rise in the number of beneficiaries.

In addition, the PCSO delivered through 2017 a total of 221 ambulances to local government units and public hospitals nationwide. This has served thousands more indigent patients who need to be rushed to hospitals for urgent medical care.

The PCSO has opened new provincial branch offices, bringing its presence to 63 of the country’s 81 provinces. A total of 49,635 indigent patients were able to undergo chemotherapy with PCSO support while 13,784 were assisted for “peritoneal and hemodialysis.” Hundreds of thousands more were helped with their hospital confinement, laboratory tests and medicines.

In addition, the PCSO has expanded support for local governments as well as the PNP. The PCSO extension office at the Lung Center of the Philippines doubled its daily allocation to P8 million in 2017 from only P4 million the preceding year.

This year, the PCSO aims to further increase its gross receipts to at least P59 billion. This will be achieved by adding 400 more gaming outlets and opening eight more provincial branches.

The more robust revenue stream will enable the PCSO to buy 200 more ambulances than last year for the poorer municipalities and pay hospitals within 45 days for the costs of medical care for indigents, including accounts owed from the previous administrations. The agency likewise plans to accredit at least 20 more hospitals to accommodate the larger number of IMAP beneficiaries.

Troubled

The hospital industry, which benefited from prompt PCSO payments and the thousands of additional direct hires by the agency are wondering if the same strong performance may be turned in should new leaders be installed.

Corpuz has pleaded health reasons when he resigned. Indeed, the man suffered from a stroke recently – very likely from working too hard. But there may be other reasons, too.

When Balutan assumed his post as general manager, he received a courtesy call from Sandra Cam. Accompanying Cam, unannounced as far as the general manager was concerned, was the controversial gambling personality Charlie ‘Atong’ Ang.

Ang owns a company called Meridien based at the Cagayan Freeport Zone that holds a franchise to operate jai-alai fronton and off-fronton betting stations. He is believed to be still active in jueteng operations. When Ireneo ‘Ayong’ Maliksi was chair of the PCSO, there were reports Ang was able to convince the PCSO to go slow on establishing STL outlets. Whatever the truth about these things, Ang is an extremely controversial personality.

Cam was subsequently appointed a director of the PCSO and, not long after that, raised the issue of extravagant spending against GM Balutan for a Christmas party held for thousands of employees of the agency. One imagines the relationship between Balutan and Cam is not good. That might have adverse implications for the work the agency performs.

The resigned chairman, Corpuz, might have real health concerns. Part of that might be to avoid the aggravation that came with Cam.