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Council probes STL, lotto in Laoag City

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By Dominic B. dela Cruz
Staff Reporter

Laoag City—The Sangguniang Panlungsod here is set to investigate the past and current operations of the small-town lottery and lotto in this city.

Laoag Vice mayor Vicentito M. Lazo sponsored the resolution to investigate the said gambling operations, with all council members and ex-officio members as co-sponsors.

Mr. Lazo said the resolution was in line with the recent verbal order of President Rodrigo R. Duterte to stop all gaming schemes even with franchises from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) due to “massive corruption”. PCSO operations, however, have since restarted.

With the temporary halt of PCSO operations, families of ‘cabos’ and ‘cobradors’ have been displaced since it deprived them of their means of livelihood whether they were working part-time or full-time.

According to Mr. Lazo, PCSO records show that the it granted STL operations franchise in this city to Lucky Pick Amusement and Development Incorporated based in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte, which started its operations in Ilocos Norte as far back as 2007.

“Ket maayaban danto tapnu maamawan ken mai-compare diay record da no manu a talaga iti mairem-remit ditoy siyudad iti Laoag ken mai-compare met tay record iti City Treasurer’s Office ta kitaen tayo no husto dagidiay figures,” Mr. Lazo said.

The City Treasurer’s Office (CTO) records show that PCSO remits more or less P25,000 per month, which supposedly represents the city’s 10% share from STL operations since 2016.

But for the fourth quarter of 2018, Mr. Lazo learned that PCSO remitted more than PHP250,000 as the city’s share from LOTTO. From this calculation, the city’s lotto share should be around PHP83,000 per month.

“Ket no PHP83,000 per month more or less iti sapsapulen iti lotto, saan a mabalin a PHP25,000 lang iti sapsapulen iti STL. Ta daytoy STL ket dakdakkel iti sakupen na isu nga saan a nakapapapati no apay PHP25,000.00 iti irem-remit iti STL,” Mr.  Lazo explained. 

It from this discrepancy, Mr. Lazo said that they need to conduct an investigation in order to determine the necessity of passing a measure that would ensure that the city government was not shortchanged in connection with gaming schemes that have been granted franchises by the PCSO, which resumed its operations.

“Ta no kaspagarigan na shortchange iti city government, baka mabalin a kamaten didiay bond,” Mr. Lazo said as among the possibilities.

In this connection, Mr. Lazo said that the Sangguniang Panlungsod needs to consider the passage of a measure to alleviate the plight of the displaced families of the ‘cabos’ and ‘cobradors’.

Relative to this, CTO officer-in-charge Diomedes Gayban said the remitted amounts from STL and LOTTO are intended for the assistance for health and social services.

Mr. Gayban said his office will try to look backwards from 2016 when Lucky Pick started operating in the city and if there were already remittances received prior to 2016 because his records only started from 2016 onwards.

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