Ninoy Aquino sweepstakes tickets sold out

MANILA, Philippines - Tickets for the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) “Freedom Draw” in commemoration of the Aug. 21, 1983 assassination of the late Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. have been sold out, a top PCSO official said yesterday.

PCSO general manager Jose Ferdinand Rojas II said 3,000,000 tickets for the Freedom Draw on Sunday were sold out, netting P30,000,000 income. Each traditional sweepstakes ticket sells for P10 each.

“We are in the process of revitalizing the traditional sweepstakes draw because we want to give more to charity as well as provide dignified jobs to handicapped (people that usually sell the sweepstakes tickets) we used to see in the streets,” he said.

The traditional sweepstakes draw is the original fund-raising activity of the government for charity programs and it provides handicapped people a chance to sell tickets and earn a decent livelihood.

Rojas said the Sweepstakes Freedom Draw would be held at the PCSO headquarters at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in Pasay City on Sunday morning.

From the ticket sales P11,603,592 will be allocated for prizes, and P580,179.60 to pay taxes. The prizes for the sweepstakes draw, however, are tax-free.

The jackpot is P5 million, P2.5 million (second prize), P1 million (third prize), and P250,000 (for two fourth prizes), and many other consolation prizes, Rojas said.

Rojas said the agency is also planning to have another sweepstakes draw before the year ends.

Meanwhile, the jackpot prize for the PCSO 6/55 Grand Lotto online lottery draw is expected to hit P125 million after nobody won the draw last Wednesday night.

Rojas said nobody got the winning number combination 55-47-24-20-39-37 with a P113,547,520.80 jackpot.

He said 12 players won the second prize of P150,000 each for picking five digits of the six-digit number combination.

A lucky player from Sultan Kudarat got the six-digit combination 27-26-25-40-20-14, which carried the P38,173,097.80 jackpot for the 6/45 Mega Lotto draw last Wednesdays.

The winning ticket for the 6/45 draw was sold by a lotto outlet inside the public market in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat.

The winner is the 83rd lotto instant millionaire since January this year.