Police Colonel Gemma Vinluan, Cebu City Police Office chief |CDND File Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) will be inspecting all the Small Town Lottery (STL) operations in Cebu City to check if they have complied with the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s (PCSO) requirements that would qualify them to operate as authorized outlets.
Police Colonel Gemma Vinluan, CCPO chief, said they will conduct the inspection once PCSO General Manager Royima Garma gives the go signal for all STL branches to officially start their operation again.
President Rodrigo Duterte, who suspended all the PCSO gaming activities last July 26, 2019, has recently lifted the suspension of STL operations, which was announced first by Garma in a Facebook video on Thursday, August 22, 2019.
Garma, the former CCPO chief replaced by Vinluan, retired from the police service last June to take up the PCSO post.
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According to Vinluan, they have the list of authorized STL outlets in the city even before the suspension was announced by President Duterte in July.
Now that the President has lifted the ban on STL operation, the next step for the police will be to make sure the all those who will be operating are those who have complied with all the requirements of PCSO.
“We will patronize yung legal na allowed ng PCSO. All other underground ay huhulihin pa rin pag hindi nila na meet yung requirements ng PCSO,” said Vinluan.
(We will patronize those legal branches allowed by PCSO. All other underground operations will be closed down and the operators will be apprehended of they would not meet the [new] requirements of PCSO.)
Among the requirements for the STL to operate is for the franchise holders to give a a “three months deposit” to PCSO and to sign a waiver stating that the franchise holders cannot sue the government./elb
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