After its crackdown on illegal online gambling, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said yesterday the government will now target the small town lottery (STL) operations where billions of pesos are lost in unpaid taxes.
Aguirre said he has been tasked by President Duterte to investigate the non-payment of taxes in STL and to file charges against those responsible.
“Billions are lost by the government in these STL operations,” he said in an interview.
STL was conceived by the government to combat the illegal numbers game “jueteng.”
But reports stated that some STL franchise holders actually operate “jueteng” using their STL permit as fronts and thus actual sales were not reported to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
They reportedly defraud the government of STL sales by violating rules and regulations such as the absence of point of sale terminals (POSTs), use of “papelitos” (jueteng bet sheets), and maintenance of unregistered “rebisahan” (where bets are brought).
Aguirre said the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) will do the probe on reports that only 10 to 15 per cent of the total revenues from STL are remitted to the PCSO during the previous administration.
“The President wants to increase the STL collection and make sure that everything collected will be remitted to PCSO.
He intends to use these STL proceeds to fund free medicines for our countrymen,” Aguirre said.
Actually, the assignment to probe STL operations has been given by the President a few months ago but the implementation was delayed because of the crackdown on illegal online gambling, the justice secretary said.
He added the probe was further delayed when a controversy surfaced involving extortion by certain government officials on the operations of Macau-based Jack Lam in Pampanga where 1,316 Chinese workers were arrested.
Earlier, the President had created a task force headed by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea on STL operations.
Aguirre said that Medialdea had met with PCSO officials. (REY G. PANALIGAN)