Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office general manager Alexander Balutan on Thursday offered to resign as he challenged anyone to produce proof he was shortchanging the government with the agency’s seemingly low monthly gross revenue from its Small Town Lottery operations.
“Now, I pose this challenge to everyone. If anybody can produce the STL (Small Town Lottery) P6.5-billion monthly gross revenue as being taunted by the genius of Senate and Atong Ang, I will resign as GM today,” Balutan said in a statement in reaction to the recent Senate hearing where he was being accused of corruption.
“I was accused of shortchanging the government of the revenues supposedly earned from STL with the insinuations that I benefit from it,” he added.
Balutan said records show that PCSO-STL made history by generating P15.7 billion in revenue for 2017, or about P1.3 billion a month, from a mere P4.7 billion in just one year “during his watch and with strong support, unflinching loyalty and dedicated service of the PCSO’s workforce.”
To underscore his integrity, Balutan said it can be recalled that he was still a Marine colonel when he testified in the Senate on alleged cheating during the 2004 presidential elections.
“I have spent more than 37 years of my adult life in the Marine Corps, two-thirds of it in the battlefronts. I have survived more than 50 combat encounters and four ambushes against the enemy of the state that most of my detractors never experienced in their lives—in my solemn oath to protect our motherland,” he said.
Balutan described those battles as “real and gruesome scenarios in combat tainted by blood of his Marines, far from the ‘acoustic war’ at the Senate supposedly run by ‘professional legal warriors.’”
“I will never gamble my impeccable military records as PMA (Philippine Military Academy) Cavalier and TOPS (The Outstanding Philippine Soldier) Awardee and more than 35 military service awards mostly won for gallantry in combat for these flimsy STL issues,” said Balutan.
In 2011, Balutan was one of 10 military men who received the TOPS award, given out annually by Metrobank Foundation in partnership with the Rotary Club of Makati Metro.
He was cited for his successful campaigns against Muslim rebels and for forging a peace pact among 18 mayors in Lanao del Sur and Marawi City before the 2004 elections when he was a battalion commander.
“Never in my life have I asked a stupid thing from anyone, simply because I can survive on my own. In my stint as GM of PCSO I promised myself I would never talk to any person with business interests with the PCSO outside my office, so I would not be suspected of bias or of receiving bribes.”
Balutan also said: “I am a full blooded Marine. I am not used to sinister things. It’s not in my system. I am used to fighting!”
Family, friends, former and current co-workers, and followers were quick to express their support on Facebook to the former general.