QUEZON City Councilor Ranulfo Ludovica on Wednesday hits officials of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and Tiaong Mayor Ramon Preza of Quezon province for the “illegal” operation of a small-town lottery in the city’s District 2 just two weeks ago.
In an interview, Ludovica said the PCSO does not have the power to issue a franchise or a permit to any person allowing an STL operation under Republic Act 1169 or the PCSO Charter of 1954, and that the authority to issue a franchise or a permit must emanate from the House of Representatives.
He said he was taken aback by a revelation that an STL was operating in Barangay Holy Spirit when he was invited to be a resource person of a technical working group in Congress to amend some provisions of RA 1169.
Quoting House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, Ludovica said the STL was being used as a front for “jueteng,” an illegal numbers game.
Under the law, the PCSO can only allow the operation of national lotteries, the councilor said.
PCSO officials and
The City Council has invited QC Police District director Guillermo Eleazar, PCSO general manager Alexander Balutan, and Great Platinum representatives to a hearing on Sept. 6 at 2 p.m.
PCSO earned the wrath of Congress and the Quezon City council for apparently granting Great Platinum Gaming Online Inc. a permit to operate an STL “not only in District 2, but in the entire Quezon City,” Ludovica said.
“There is a plan to expand operations as implied in two of PCSO’s certifications issued on Aug. 8, giving Great Platinum the blanket authority to put up more STL games in the National Capital Region’s Central District, or Quezon City,” he cited.
“Great Platinum is just using a certain Marcelo G. Flores as its dummy,” Ludovica said, adding Preza is its actual owner.
“Preza is known as ‘Don Ramon,’ a jueteng lord in Quezon. That is a common knowledge. I should know. I was also a jueteng lord for 17 years,” the District 2 councilor said.
“I am saying this because I would just like to protect the people, particularly the poor, from being victimized by jueteng depriving them of their hard-earned money.”
Great Platinum is not only cheating Quezon City in taxes, but is operating without a special use permit from the 37-member City Council and a franchise from Congress, and is defying an injunction order of a Quezon City court stopping the STL as early as 2001, Ludovica said.
Then-Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. managed to convince the QC Regional Trial Court that the PCSO could not give any STL operator the authority to do business in the city without the approval of Congress, and eventually the local government, Ludovica said.
“According to the Speaker (Belmonte), PCSO’s operation of an STL games violates its charter,” he stressed.
Ludovica said the objective of establishing the STL was to wipe out jueteng, but police investigations in the past showed operators of the illegal numbers game were using STL as a front for their operations.
