THE Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) fell short of its P11.59 billion revenue target for the first quarter of this year.
The PCSO generated only P11.24 billion from January to March this year, down by 3 percent from its collection goal.
The PCSO said its revenue activities were affected because of the suspension of games following the re-imposition of enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the National Capital Region (NCR) Plus area. Aside from this, the PCSO said it suffered a decline in sales as people lost their jobs as the economy nearly tanked.
“Two factors were identified that impacted the revenue of PCSO,” the gambling regulator said in its first quarter accomplishment report.
First, on March 22, 2021, the NCR Plus area was reverted back to ECQ and adhering to the IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases) directives for ECQ areas affect the revenue as Lotto and other digit games as well as STL (Small Town Lottery) for those affected areas were suspended.
Second, the effect of pandemic has brought unemployment, hence, the decreased in sales, the PCSO report said. Nonetheless, PCSO’s revenues for the first quarter of this year still grew by 21 percent from P9.27 billion in the same period in 2020.
Broken down, PCSO earned the most from its lotto and digit games in the first quarter of the year, amounting to P5.756 billion, up by 15 percent from last year’s P4.99 billion.
Taking the next spot after lotto and digit games is STL wherein PCSO earned P5.12 billion, a 35-percent jump from P3.8 billion last year.
Meanwhile, PCSO generated P250 million in revenues from its National Instant Sweepstakes Program. This was an 18-percent climb from P212.37 million the same quarter last year.
As for Keno, the agency reported a 43-percent year-on-year drop in revenues for the first quarter to P122.73 million from P216.24 million.
To address its “inadequate” revenue generation for the first quarter, PCSO vowed to explore other betting platforms.
PCSO Assistant General Manager Arnel Casas told the BusinessMirror the agency is aiming to collect this year a total of P35 billion in revenues, a 24.5-percent cut from its original target of P46.36 billion. That target was set before the declaration of ECQ that led to the suspension of lotto and STL operations in several areas nationwide.
“Since we resumed our operations, our sales have not yet reached the same level as before so we recalibrated our sales projection for this year to 35B,” Casas told the BusinessMirror.
In the first quarter of this year, PCSO provided P529.04 million as health and medical-related assistance to individuals, local government units and government facilities.
As part of its mandate under the Universal Health Care (UHC) Act, PCSO also contributed P185.38 million since it is required to remit 50 percent of the 40 percent UHC fund pool. Aside from this, it also contributed a total of P88.542 million to the Dangerous Drugs Board and Commission and Higher Education.
The PCSO also released P63.447 million as lotto shares to local government units (LGUs) and P3.683 million as STL shares to Philippine National Police, National Bureau of Investigation and four LGUs.
It also paid a total of P2.7 billion in taxes to the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
Image courtesy of Roy Domingo