Waste of time

The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), under its charter, is the principal government agency tasked to provide funds for health programs, medical assistance and services, and charities of national character, and to raise the money needed to finance these activities by conducting fund generation operations like charity sweepstakes races, lotteries and health and welfare-related investments.

Among its projects is the PCSO Individual Medical Assistance Program to attend to the financial needs of all individuals with health-related problems. It also has a calamity assistance program to assist affected localities, communities and families by providing funding assistance for the procurement/provision of necessary calamity-response goods, services and equipment.

PCSO also provide financial assistance to medical facilities (government or private) and other health institutions for the purchase of medical equipment to provide accessible and quality/health services to indigent patients, and to LGUs and NGOs for the purchase of medicines and medical supplies for the benefit of indigent patients in their areas, to government hospitals and facilities to defray cost of materials for the construction or renovation of hospitals and other health facilities nationwide, among others.

Under PCSO general manager Alexander Balutan and former chairman Jorge Corpuz’s watch, in just 18 months, PCSO last year increased its gross retail receipts from operations to a record-breaking P53 billion, giving the agency more resources to provide medical and health assistance services.

Gross receipts from PCSO games – lotto, sweepstakes, keno and small town lottery – went up 34 percent to P53 billion from P37 billion in 2016. According to the current PCSO leadership, which assumed office in July 2016, the revenue growth was the result of organizational teamwork.

This remarkable performance may have dawned on President Duterte such that the President asked PCSO director Sandra Cam to stop fighting with Balutan and to just be friends with him.

Cam earlier questioned the P10 million allegedly spent for the holding of the PCSO Christmas party at a five-star hotel, which she said is inappropriate for a government agency that gives assistance to the less fortunate. But according to Balutan, what was spent was only P6 million. Cam has yet to prove her allegations.

Balutan and Corpuz, meanwhile, accuse Cam of trying to unseat them in order to take over leadership of PCSO and to help her friend Charlie “Atong” Ang to monopolize STL operations.

Senate games and amusement committee chair Panfilo Lacson has asked PCSO officials to explain all these allegations.

The President knew better than to waste his time with these internal squabbles. Let us hope that Congress does the same.

Key to success is cooperation and not competition. Balutan and Cam should not be competing with each other and should instead be working together to improve PCSO operations so the agency can help more people.

More skeletons in the closet

Sexual harassment and exploitation knows no age, sex, creed, nor status in life.

It can be committed by an employer, teacher, coach or trainor, or any person who having authority, influence or moral ascendancy over another in a work, training, or education-environment, demands, requests or otherwise requires any sexual favor regardless of whether such demand, request or requirement for submission is accepted by the object, as defined in Republic Act 7877 or the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995.

With allegations of sexual harassment against Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein opening the floodgates for similar complaints against influential men in the US and elsewhere, I wonder if and when someone will start the ball rolling, so to speak, here.

Then of course, there is Larry Nassar, the former Team USA gymnastics doctor who pleaded guilty to sexual assault charges involving more than 265 people, including very young gymnasts.

The latest “powerful” man to be accused of engaging in sexual harassment is casino magnate Steve Wynn, who earlier claimed that corruption was deeply ingrained in the Philippine gaming industry in his bid to oust his Asian partner, Japanese pachinko king Kazuo Okada, from their business venture.

Wynn has been accused of routinely subjecting women who worked for him to unwanted sexual advances.

Shares of Wynn Macau and US parent Wynn Resorts continue to fall, even as he has resigned as finance chair of the Republican National Committee. The company has now lost 18 percent of its value, or about $3.5 billion in market capitalization, since the report came out.

The board of publicly listed Wynn Resorts Ltd. is forming a special committee to investigate the accusations against Steve Wynn.

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission in its ongoing investigation into Wynn, has also revealed that information about a $7.5-million settlement over a Wynn misconduct had been kept from Massachusetts officials. Wynn is building a $2.4-billion casino outside Boston and these allegations might result in its license being suspended.

Also, the Macau Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau has met with Wynn Macau’s management to get more information on the accusations. The Macau casino accounts for 75 percent of Wynn’s revenues.

Some US Republican senators have called for the RNC to return all donations it received from Steve Wynn, who has personally donated more than $2.5 million to the Republican Governors Association since 2012.

The WRL Board has also come under scrutiny. After all, he is chairman and CEO and what is Wynn Resorts without Steve? Should the board have known about all these and done something about it?

Then there are reports about shareholders planning to file a class action lawsuit for breach of fiduciary duty involving the directors and officers of Wynn Resorts.

What goes around indeed comes around.

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