It’s been almost 6 months since the bettor from Luzon wins P741-million Grand Lotto 6/55 jackpot, the biggest in the country’s history. It took 86 draws before a bettor won the jackpot (which I heard is a balikbayan); it seems the Lottery Gods must have smiled on Monday night because someone beat the 1-in-29 million odds, a feat that had proved elusive for at least six months since this streak began.
It seems another life will change this coming Saturday when Lotto’s pot will boom up to P315 million since no one grab the pot last Wednesday night.
“No winner yet in the Grand lotto and the estimate grand prize for the next draw on Saturday would be about P315 million,” according to Liza Gabuyo, Assistant General Manager of On Line Lottery Department of PCSO.
The previous biggest jackpot was posted in February 2009, when the pot for the 6/49 Super Lotto game reached P347 million. Two lucky bettors picked the same combination to split the top prize.
I found out, however, that it was physically impossible to beat the odds by repeatedly writing different six-number combinations. The fastest I could write was ten six-number combinations per minute or the equivalent of 14,400 per 24-hour day. Thus, in the next 60-hours between 8am of Friday and 8pm of Sunday, assuming it were possible to fill up lotto tickets non-stop, I would be buying a maximum of 36,000 tickets at P720,000. At that rate, winning would still be as remote as a lightning hit.
Now you know why you don’t know of anybody who has won the 6/49 Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) lotto draw. All we have are press releases from the PCSO announcing that an anonymous carpenter, a dishwasher or a driver has won this or that draw. Of course, no jackpot winner in his right mind would love to be publicly identified.
But what if we are only made to believe that a true winner has claimed the prize? What if there really exists a high-level syndicate within the PCSO that rakes in the windfall?
I asked those questions in the light of the experience of a supposedly jackpot winner, the story of Calito Milando, the poor salesman who supposedly a jackpot winner from Dingsalan, Aurora – who’s winning ticket was dishonored for being” fake”. It deserves an update, lest it would be completely forgotten.
Ducayag wrote that, early that day, Mirando, a lumber salesman, went to a lotto ticket outlet at ACT theater in Cubao, Quezon City and bought a ticket – then costing ten pesos – betting on the combination 15-22-23-24-34-36.
The following day, he read the newspaper that his ticket had won. He walked back to the ACT lotto outlet and showed his winning ticket to the lady teller, who immediately inserted the ticket to the computerized machine verifier. The computer screen flashed the words, “Congratulations for winning the jackpot prize!”
On March 18, 1996, Mirando – clad in t-shirt, short pants and slippers, hence looking every inch like a tramp – showed up at the PCSO office on San Marcelino St., Manila. No less than then PCSO Chairman Manuel Morato met him at the reception room and got hold of his ticket. Morato excused himself to go to his office. An hour passed before he re-emerged. He returned the ticket, telling Mirando that it’s a counterfeit, and that somebody else, a driver from Lipa City, had bagged the jackpot.
To appease him, a PCSO legal counsel, Atty. Romualdo Quiñones, advised him to stop arguing with the chairman and go to court instead.
Before going to court, Mirando sought the help of Department of Justice (DOJ) State Prosecutor Teresita Domingo and Judge Luisito Cortez of the Municipal Trial Court of Plaridel, Bulacan. They arranged for Mirando to meet with Morato at Sulo Restaurant, Quezon City, with the end view of settling the problem out of court. But Morato did not show up.
Consequently, with the financial support of sympathetic lumber dealers, Mirando filed a case for damages and for payment of P120-million prize against PCSO and chairman Morato on September 1, 2000 before Judge Thelma Ponferrada of the Regional Trial Court Branch 215, Quezon City.
One of the witnesses for the plaintiff, Edwin Alibuyog of the Philippine Gaming Management Corporation (the exclusive supplier of lotto ticket-dispensing computers, including the one assigned to ACT outlet), vouched for the authenticity of Mirando’s ticket.
Surprisingly, when the court sought the ACT outlet teller for her testimony, she was no longer at her post. In fact, the outlet itself had suddenly moved out without prior notice.
Nevertheless, Alibuyog debunked the assertion of Morato that somebody other than Mirando had won the P120-million, March 9, 1996 jackpot. Morato’s purported winner, a jeepney driver from Lipa City, could not have won because the outlet from where he had allegedly bought his ticket, Zenco Sales on Libertad St., Pasay City, started operating only on April 28, 1996 – more than six weeks after the March 9 draw.
While this case was pending in court, Carlito Mirando Jr. had to move from a friend’s house to another’s due to threats to his life. There was a time when, at the business address of a lumber dealer in Cabanatuan City, a group of armed men came looking for him.
The reporter of People’s Tonight who first exposed the Mirando misfortune, Janet Ducayag, testified that Morato had warned him not to testify for Mirando. But she did, saying that unidentified men had strafed her car while parking on Del Pan, Port Area, and Manila. Fortunately, she was not inside.
This writer has also repeatedly questioned the credibility of lotto draws. In this corner last month, I echoed the opinion of Pangasinan Archbishop Oscar Cruz that there must be some hidden political agenda behind the massive promotion of lotto – aimed at luring the gullible to bet their bottom peso – in the light of renewed calls for charter change, which could open opportunity for the President to extend her term beyond 2010. Cruz is among the political analysts who believe that PCSO and PAGCOR money have been “effective” in the House as far as frustrating efforts to impeach GMA is concerned.
In response, a reader e-mailed me what I had not yet known: that Mirando had lost his case; it was dismissed by the RTC on April 27, 2005, sustaining Morato’s claim that Mirando’s ticket was fake.
On March 30, 2006, Carlito L. Mirando, Jr. appealed before the Court of Appeals, docketed as CA-GR CY No. 86399, assigning errors to the RTC’s decision.
Mirando, now 60 years old, still clings to the hope that, eventually, the Court of Appeals would reverse the lower court’s decision. But never again will he bet on lotto.
Poor Calito, he suffered so much from the hands of this wicked closet queen who still doesn’t want to come out of his shell and proudly say to the world that “I AM GAY!”
If only Calito made the bet during the time of Margie Juico, it would not happen. Maybe right now he enjoys his fortunes together with his wife and kids in Hong Kong Disneyland or in Las Vegas.
But come to think of it, Calito and Margie has the same common denominator- Manoling Morato. What I could suggest to Calito is to seek assistance from Margie to end his agony to this OLD F***** WITCH.
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