(Eagle News)– President Rodrigo Duterte revealed on Thursday (September 16) the reason why he appointed former uniformed men to chair the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). This was to stop alleged syndicates entrenched at the PCSO from bleeding the office dry of its funds.
The President said billions of pesos were lost yearly because of these syndicates, and a tough agency chair was needed to clean the ranks of the PCSO.
Duterte said he found that tough guy in the person of retired Marine general Alexander Balutan whom the President decided to appoint as PCSO general manager.
Describing Balutan as a “berdugo,” he said this retired military general was initially eyed to head the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor), but Duterte changed his mind, saying that PCSO’s condition was more problematic. Because of alleged anomalies at the PCSO, the country was losing about P20 million a day, or billions of pesos a year.
“I had a hard time looking for guys to run it. And I could not find it in the civilian sector because I doubted their integrity and everything. So ang ginawa ko, I started to look somewhere, isa diyan si Jorge Corpuz who is a police PNP,” Duterte said.
Jose Jorge Corpuz is a retired police chief superintendent who was recently designated as PCSO chair.
“Then another one, gusto ko talagang berdugo si Alex Balutan, I assigned him doon sa Bureau of Penitentiary, pero I changed my mind because kailangan ko mas berdugo dito because itong kabila na ito, we were losing billions of pesos a year in taxes na magamit ng Pilipino,” he explained.
The President explained that members of the Philippine National Police Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) were already assigned to guard the New Bilibid Prisons, and they could already keep watch over the NBP and make sure that previous anomalies at the national penitentiary would be stopped.
So he decided to put Balutan to the PCSO instead.
“As you would notice, most of the positions now are occupied by the military and the police. As a matter of fact, itong Philippine Charity Sweepstakes, binaboy ‘yan ng mga sindikato pati ‘yung mga, ‘yung mga gangster dito na big time sa Pilipinas,” Duterte said.
‘Yung lotto, sinakyan nila ng jueteng, pero sila rin ang humawak and they were granted that right by previous government. At ini-merge nila ng… So we were losing about 20 million a day,” he added.
Both Corpuz and Balutan were also named board members of the PCSO.
Their appointments were dated September 5.
(by Rex Salvador, edited by DCY, Eagle News Service)
