The joint panel of the House committee on public accounts chaired by Minority Leader Danilo Suarez and the committee on games and amusements chaired by Parañaque City Rep. Gus Tambunting tackled a proposal to expand the small town lottery operations to generate 600,000 jobs nationwide.
The joint panel has directed Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office officials to brief the House of Representatives on its operations.
Suarez said there were two pending bills in Congress seeking gaming operations that were transparent and fair, and could generate employment of 600,000 workers.
He said that in his province alone, there were about 35,000 to 38,000 marginal workers who lack the necessary criteria or diploma.
“Some of them maybe did not finish high school. What is important is that they can write numbers [and do] subtraction, addition. Those are the primary jobs of a collector or a ‘kabo.’ We still have many other places that do not have STLs,” said Suarez.
He said the intention of the two committees was to assist the PCSO in getting a franchise.
“We’ve checked from the records of Congress and there was no franchise given to PCSO,” he said.
“Bear in mind, what we are going to do is to help the PCSO to legalize what they are doing because right now they are not allowed to do so. Technically they are doing an illegal act because there is no congressional franchise to operate the STL. [What they have] is a franchise to operate the sweepstakes under an executive order. ’yung big lotto” he said.
Tambunting, meanwhile, said the meeting was being conducted to apprise the committee how the PCSO was coping as the principal agency tasked to raise and provide funds for health programs, medical assistance and services and charities of national character without funding from the national government.
He questioned the PCSO’s move to hire a consultancy firm for P46 million and to assist in the procurement of the P10.9-billion online lottery project.
Assistant General Manager for Management Services and current bids and awards committee chairman Lauro Patiag said the procurement for the information technology gaming consultancy services is ongoing.
Part of the agenda for approval of the board was the shortlisted bidder to do consultancy services.
Patiag said a consultancy firm was needed to ensure that the terms of reference, the conduct of procurement, and its validation would be “accurate as advised by our Commission on Audit.”
San Jose del Monte, Bulacan Rep. Florida Robes, however, lamented how the charity agency intended to pay consultancy firm Isla Lipana & Co. for P46 million for its validation and assessment of the procurement process for PCSO’s nationwide online lottery system.
“What is painful is we can pay a consultant for P46 million and yet we are only giving our indigent patients an amount up to P10,000 only. That pains us. That is the truth,” he said.
But assistant general manager for gaming, product development, and marketing Arnel Casas justified the need for a consultancy firm to “validate the cost per component and specification per component of the system for the NOLS” and to satisfy CoA's advice on the project.
