THE PHILIPPINE Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) admitted on Tuesday the continued operation of illegal numbers games, popularly referred to as jueteng, during the joint hearing of the House Committees on Games and Amusement and Public Accounts. “There’s still jueteng,” PCSO Chairman Anselmo Simeon P. Pinili said on Tuesday, when asked by Antipolo City-2nd district Rep. Romeo M. Acop. Mr. Acop deemed this as the reason for the decline in the collection of PCSO from small town lotteries (STL). “I think jueteng is coming up with a vengeance. And that’s the reason why the amounts being given to the PCSO from the collections of the ASAs (Authorized STL Agents) have gone down,” Mr. Acop said. The PCSO said ASAs that do not reach their collection target are terminated, a policy that the panel said may further proliferate illegal gambling. In response, Mr. Pinili said, “We are now coordinating with the Bureau of Internal Revenue that we have to have an official written receipt in all transactions, and after that we will also push our reinforcement agencies to go after those in the illegal numbers game. We are trying to solve our problem, but it’s a work in progress.” — Charmaine A. Tadalan

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