THE government is supposedly losing more than P20 million a day because the Aquino administration willfully allowed the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office to be “ransacked by goons and syndicates,” President Rodrigo Duterte said Thursday.
Citing his decision to place a military man to lead the PCSO, Duterte said that he cannot allow corruption to thrive inside the state lottery system, being racheted by goons.
“As a matter of fact, this Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office was treated like a pig by these syndicates and gangsters, the Lotto was used to cover up jueteng, and they were granted a right by the previous government and they merged it,” Duterte said in his speech at Camp Tecson in Bulacan.
“We are losing about P20 million a day because they are reporting less,” Duterte said.
On Monday, Duterte appointed former police general Jose Jorge Corpuz as the new chairman of the supposedly corrupt agency.
Shortly after winning the presidency, Duterte said that he wanted a “killer” to replace former Cavite governor Erineo “Ayong” Maliksi, who was charged with graft over the extension of contracts for the lease of lottery terminals without public bidding.
“PCSO is a corrupt agency. I am looking for a killer to head this agency. Those bingo games that they hold, the lotto and ‘jueteng’ that is the racket,” he said.
Maliksi reportedly left his position out of delicadeza.
Duterte said that he placed Corpuz, a member of the Philippine Military Academy Batch ‘82, because he needs someone who can kill because of the rampant corruption in the agency.
“I changed my mind. I need someone who can kill because we’re losing billions of pesos every year in form of taxes that could be used for soldiers and the indigent,” he said.