MANILA -- The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) on Friday reported that the agency's revenue from January to November 2017 reached record-high, earning almost PHP47 billion, which is 32% higher than its recorded sales within the same period of 2016.
“We are very happy to announce that PCSO was able to generate PHP11 billion more than what the agency was able to generate last year. And we are very positive that we will be able to reach our 51 Billion sales revenue target by the end 2017,” PCSO Chairperson Jose Corpuz said in a statement.
He said that as mandated by law, 55% of the sales revenue generated by PCSO will go to the Prize Fund which is used for payment of prizes to lucky winners of all PCSO games, while 30% of the sales is set aside for charity programs, projects and activities of the agency.
Only 15% of the sales would be used for the daily operations of PCSO.
For his part, PCSO General Manager Alexander Balutan said that from January to November this year, 61 lucky Filipinos became instant millionaires through the nationwide lottery games of PCSO.
He added that a total amount of P11.16 billion was also set aside to pay the prizes for all game winners this year.
Balutan said prizes not claimed within one year from the draw date are considered forfeited and immediately form part of the agency’s charity fund which is used for the various medical, health and charitable services of PCSO, including the Individual Medical Assistance Program (IMAP), Ambulance Donation Program, outpatient consultation services, medical and dental mission, medicine donation, calamity assistance, among others.
A total amount of PHP7,026,901,528 was allocated for 356,520 IMAP patients from January to November of 2017 as compared to only 269,312 IMAP beneficiaries within the same months of 2016.
The PCSO Charity Sector also reported 56 government and private hospitals with operational PCSO ASAP Desks nationwide with 32 more hospitals awaiting implementation.
Just recently, the PCSO Board approved the PHP10 million calamity assistance for the victims of Typhoon "Urduja."
“It is sad to see that over the holiday Season, our countrymen in the Visayas and Mindanao have been badly affected by typhoons. To answer the needs of our kababayans in those areas, PCSO already allocated 10 Million pesos for the victims of Urduja and we also have plans to give 5.4 Million pesos as calamity assistance to the areas affected by typhoon Vinta," said Balutan.
He said the assistance will be facilitated by the PCSO Charity and Branch Operations Sector, through the help of Visayas and Mindanao branch offices.
To date, there are already 63 PCSO provincial branch offices, 18 of which are in Northern and Central Luzon, 16 in Southern Tagalog and Bicol Region, 14 in Visayas and 15 in Mindanao.
“We also target to open eight more provincial Branch Offices in 2018 so that by 2022 our 81 branch offices will all be ready to serve you,” said Balutan.
Meanwhile, for the period of January to November 2017, the charitable Agency distributed 216 ambulances nationwide amounting to almost PHP170 million. The office also released almost PHP930 million as mandatory contributions which benefitted various government agencies and socio-civic organizations, and paid almost PHP8 billion in taxes including deficiency taxes incurred prior to the Duterte administration, and gave P990 million as STL shares to provinces, congressional districts, cities, municipalities, the PNP and the CIDG.
“We believe that these figures recorded by PCSO for this year cannot lie. The present PCSO Governing Board, together with the Agency’s diligent officials and employees, has been working hard throughout the year to ensure that the Filipinos receive the services they deserve. And we promise that we will all work doubly hard in 2018 and make sure to serve more people," said Corpuz. (PNA)
