PCSO proposes changes in STL to combat jueteng

The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) on Thursday presented to the Senate a new set of guidelines that aims to strengthen the Small Town Lottery (STL) and eventually eradicate jueteng, a highly popular but illegal numbers game. Under the new guidelines, PCSO chairman Jose Ferdinand Rojas said they will have to improve game designs and will be "going cultural" in areas where STL is located. "Some areas may have three numbers, some areas will have two, the numbers will have 1-37, 1-31, 0-9, depending [on the] area where it is located," Rojas said during the Senate hearing on the illegal numbers game. He said that STL operations will also have increased capitalization and will be operated on a city or town level, making each area "more competitive." STL operations initially operated on a provincial level. Rojas said agencies conducting STL will be required to pay a fee of at least P5 million per city or municipality. "Having an agency fee, these operators will have a bigger stake with the business they will be engaging into with the PCSO," he said. He added that the agencies will be required to pay a performance bond equal or more than their agency fee. He said the agencies will also be required to remit sales to the PCSO on a daily basis instead of doing the same on a monthly basis. Also under the new guidelines, the list of STL "sales force" will also have to be submitted to the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Philippine National Police (PNP), and the local government units. Rojas said the STL employees will now be "real employees" in the sense that they will have taxes and will be required to have Social Security System, PhilHealth, and Pag-IBIG accounts. They will also be required to wear identification cards and uniforms all the time, he said. All of them shall also be required to use hand-held terminals and report bets not later than 20 minutes before the time of draw. Draws shall also be made public, said Rojas. He said that non-compliance with the guidelines for three consecutive months will mean automatic revocation of the agency's permit to operate STL. Rojas said they hope to implement the new guidelines by next month. Postpone it first But Senate blue ribbon committee head Senator Teofisto Guingona III and local government committee head Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. told Rojas to postpone the implementation of the changes. "Obviously changes and some fine-tuning is still necessary," said Guingona, who headed the Senate hearings on jueteng. He said the PCSO hasn't even consulted the Commission on Audit about the proposed changes. Marcos, for his part, asked if the proposal was just a knee jerk reaction on the part of the PCSO to justify the existence of STL even if it failed to eradicate jueteng. "There are many questions that need to be answered. There are many quarters that still need to be consulted. The PCSO has yet to do that," he said. Marcos said that instead of offering different games to different provinces, the PCSO should just increase the probability of winning in every STL game offered all over the country to entice more bettors to switch from jueteng. He likewise suggested that STL operators "pirate" the underlings of jueteng operators. "If they don't have people, they won't be able to operate jueteng," he said. Guingona, meanwhile, still expressed apprehension that the STL would again be used as a cover for jueteng operations. "You might be creating a monster with this system," he said. Former Pampanga governor Ed Panlilio, who was also present during the Senate hearing as a resource person, agreed with the Senate blue ribbon committee chairman. "(It's still the) same players, same STL operators, franchisees, it will be the same," Panlilio said in an interview after the hearing. He said maybe it would be better to strengthen lotto as an alternative, instead of insisting on STL, which has repeatedly failed to eradicate the illegal numbers game. — RSJ/LBG, GMANews.TV