Sandra Cam to Duterte: Relieve me

MANILA, Philippines — Presidential appointee Sandra Cam yesterday called on President Duterte to transfer her from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, where she sits on the board of directors.

“I’m appealing to our President: I love our country, you know that, and I love you for being firm in your advocacy of anti-corruption,” an emotional Cam said in a hastily called press conference yesterday afternoon.

“ I want to meet with you and I will ask you to relieve me (from my position),” she said, adding that she “can no longer take the corruption in this agency.”

Cam, who was appointed in 2017, told reporters that she had just walked out of a special board meeting called by PCSO chairman and general manager Anselmo Simeon Pinili, a retired police general.

She said she felt her fellow directors ganged up on her to compel her to reverse a recent revocation of PCSO Board Resolution 83 that gave recognition to a new set of officers of Speedgame Inc., the authorized agent corporation that operates the Small Town Lottery (STL) in Pangasinan.

Cam said she opposed reversing the revocation as there was already a legal opinion issued by the Office of the General Corporate Counsel on the infirmities of the resolution.

She alleged that  Speedgame owes the PCSO P132 million in monthly remittances of its presumptive monthly retail receipt (PMRR).

Cam also said the resolution recognized a new set of officers led by retired military general David Diciano, a classmate of Pinili’s chief of staff, retired police chief superintendent Ted Quiano.

She said the courts, not the PCSO, can rule on corporate disputes, which is what Resolution 83 seeks to resolve.

Cam said PCSO’s top officials are preoccupied with the STL, but not with collecting what STL operators owe the agency – they have a P10.7-billion shortfall in their PMRR remittance for the first five months of the year alone.

She reiterated her claim that many of the erring STL operators are led by retired police or military generals.

She alleged that dropping lotto revenues, caused by the competition brought by STL, and the shortfall in remittances by erring STL operators affect the “poor who ask help from the PCSO because there are no more funds to give them.”