The 4th floor
Visitors with paper bags enter the 4th floor and after several minutes or an hour or so they will emerge from the elevator empty handed. this was happening since people on that floor took over the management of the small town Lottery (stL) from the Branch operations sector, which is under the office of the General Manager of the Philippine Charity sweepstakes office (PCso).
The fourth floor is where the offices of the members of the Board, including the chairman, are located. What is worth looking into is why the Board has to take over the operations of the STL, because it is only there as a policy-making body.
To set the record straight, the Board has no business running PCSO’s operations because that task is the function and responsibility of the general manager, who is the chief executive for operations. The GM will implement PCSO programs
through Board resolutions.
To be fair to Gen. Alexander “Mandirigma” Balutan, former GM of PCSO, President Duterte should go beyond the flip-flopping of his spokesman Secretary Salvador S. Panelo.
The Office of the General Manager is located at the 10th floor. But it appears the buck stops at the 4th floor. Panelo, I think, was informed about this and at least some lawmakers at the house of Representatives.
If the President really wants to stop the creeping corruption at PCSO since a “jueteng queen” and a “bagman of a former mayor” entered the 4th floor, he should order an all-out probe into the “serious allegations of corruption” hurled by vested-interest individuals against Mandirigma. I’m sure this will point to the real corrupt appointees and eventually clear the name of Mandirigma.
As part of the strategy, a lawmaker who was a former cop is again in the limelight saying his committee will continue its probe on PCSO’s issues. he is known for this. Just review the previous hearings of his committee and you be the judge.
Let me cite the full text of Mandirigma’s response after Panelo’s statement that the President has “fired” him, which was twisted by some “media vultures.”
Mandirigma said: “I told PCSO employees when I assumed as GM in 2016 that if somebody [from the Office of the President/Congress] will ask or order me to do something which I cannot stomach, I will resign.
“I did not ask for this position. PRRD [President Rodrigo Roa Duterte] retired me early [from the] Marines to help him run his administration. In silence, I did and I excel [in what I do]. I did not ask anything [from the] President in return. The rest is history.
“Career for me is just temporary but character is lifetime, even beyond my grave.”
Read in between the lines folks, particularly the “media vultures” that love “parachute reporting.”
In the previous administrations, the annual PCSO revenue was only more or less P36 billion. After Mr. Duterte appointed Mandirigma as GM of PCSO, the revenue started to increase after the rollout of the expanded STL. In 2017 PCSO revenue went up to almost P53 billion, and in 2018 it reached P63.5 billion. These increases in revenues are unprecedented and were only achieved under Mandirigma. Now tell me, is Balutan corrupt as general manager of PCSO?
Indeed, there shall be a full investigation into the issue to ferret out the truth and to unmask those behind the “inflow of paper bags” at the fourth floor.