Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office general manager Jose Ferdinand Rojas II defended the performance of the agency’s board, saying it adheres to good governance.
The board faces another plunder complaint before the Ombudsman over the non-remittance of documentary stamp tax on small town lottery operations.
“We will continue to work. We are not guilty so there’s no reason to sulk in one corner,” Rojas said.
Diego Magpantay and Carlo Batalia of the Citizens Crime Watch on Thursday filed the plunder and graft complaint against Rojas and other board directors for allowing the STL operators not to remit the 10 percent documentary stamp tax from 2006 to July 2015.
Rojas in a statement called the complaint “malicious” and “baseless” designed to “malign the present board for the personal agenda and self-serving interest of certain individuals.”
Rojas said the PCSO board introduced reforms since 2010 to improve charity services and gaming activities, which earned the office a recommendation for an ISO-certification.
“We have implemented long-lasting improvements in procedures and policies and judicious expenditures, among others. PCSO is a small but successful story of our performance and good governance,” Rojas said.
“It is a pity that there are those who, in their desperation to find evidence that good governance does not work, will go to the extent of destroying agencies where good governance worked and works,” he added.
The complainants cited a September 2012 board resolution excluding the payment of documentary stamp tax in the implementing rules and regulations of the STL operations.
The tax was removed from the STL implementing rules, although other authorized PCSO games were required to pay the documentary tax.
A November 2015 memorandum addressed to newly installed PCSO chairman Erineo Maliksi showed the 2005 and 2010 implementing rules and regulations provided no provision on the payment of a 10 percent documentary stamp tax.
The same directive showed the STL remittance to the PCSO from 2006 to 2014 did not include the documentary tax.
Meanwhile, the 2014 revised rules provided for the payment of the documentary stamp tax from the gross sales of the STL games effective only on Jan. 2015.
Section 190 of the National Internal Revenue Code said a documentary stamp tax of P0.10 should be collected on each jai-alai, horse race ticket, lotto, and any other authorized numbers game.
Rojas said board directors Francisco Manuel Joaquin III, Mabel Mamba and Betty Nantes remained in high spirits despite the cases lodged against them.
“We work to serve the public. We are not politicians. PCSO should not be dragged into the personal interests of some politicians,” he said.
