ILOILO City – A new franchisee for Small Town Lottery (STL) in Iloilo province may be able to operate before the month of July ends, according to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
PCSO created STL to counter illegal numbers games.
PCSO central office is conducting a bidding, said PCSO-Iloilo manager Jeanette Lloyd.
“Wala pa. Anytime. Let’s say end of July or before the end of the month. Gina-bidding pa. I cannot say na basi bwas ara na,” she said.
Last month PCSO cancelled the franchise of the previous STL operator for Iloilo province, Eagle-Crest Gaming and Holding Corp., for failing to remit its Presumptive Monthly Retail Receipts (PMRR).
PMRR is the amount determined by PCSO as the presumed minimum monthly sales of an authorized agent corporation or STL franchisee. It should be remitted to PCSO every month.
PCSO imposed the PMRR requirement to ensure that STL operators would not be able to cheat the government on their sales and revenues.
Lloyd said as soon as the PCSO central office has found a new franchisee, there would be a public announcement.
“We are going to fast-track the process of bidding to prevent illegal numbers game operators from putting up jueteng like what’s happening in other provinces. When there’s no legal operator, illegal operators come in. And they are out there to discredit PCSO’s STL program,” said PCSO general manager Alexander Balutan.
STL revenues have already contributed almost P8 billion in the P20.8-billion sales of PCSO from January to April this year that includes Lotto products, Keno and Sweepstakes, an increase of 29.30 percent from the same period last year.
It can be noted, however, that compared with last month’s earnings where STL earned P2 billion, it only earned P1.9 billion this April.
Balutan explained that the slight decrease was attributed to the termination of some Authorized Agent Corporations (AAC) for violating the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR).
“From 84, there are now 81 STL operators. We have to terminate erring AACs because of repeated violations of the STL-IRR, especially under-remittance of the Presumptive Monthly Retail Receipt,” said Balutan./PN
