The Philippine Charity Sweepstakes (PCSO) Office has admitted editing the image of a lottery winner resulting in a call for general manager Mel Robles to resign.
The controversy surrounds the posting of an image on the organization’s official Facebook account on the 17th of January. In it, a PCSO official can be seen handing over a cheque to the lone winner of the PHP 43.8 million ($783,000) Lotto 6/42 jackpot on the 28th of December 2023. The picture aroused suspicion among netizens as it showed clear signs of having been manipulated and it didn’t take long for the organization to admit that it had indeed been edited.
The image had gone viral and come to the attention of Philippines Senator Rafael “Raffy” Tulfo, who used a Senate hearing on the PCSO’s newly launched e-lotto to quiz its General Manager Melquiades Robles about the incident. “This picture was very controversial on social media. This is reportedly edited?” Tulfo asked while holding a printed copy. “Yes, your Honor,’’ Robles replied. “We have to protect the identity of the winner.”
Robles also repeated the reasoning for using photo editing techniques to change the appearance of the 47-year-old female lottery winner in an interview with local media outlet TeleRadyo Serbisyo. He stated the PCSO had started to edit the photos of winners after one previous one complained about having been identified by the shirt she was wearing, and he insisted the winner was real.
The statement didn’t stop another politician, Representative Robert Ace Barbers, from calling for the resignation of Robles. The Representative for Surigao del Norte 1st district said in a statement on Saturday, 20th of January:
“Public office is a public trust. When people have lost their trust in you, delicadeza at the very least should drive you to resign. Was there a need to publish the pictures of the winning bettors? While there was none, PCSO GM Robles probably wanted to allay alleged rumors that some draws were not actually won and that the published winners were fictitious or staged, that he had to enlist the help of AI (artificial intelligence) technology.”
Speaking about the photo editing controversy, Barbers claimed that “nothing less than his removal as GM or resignation could put the fire out”. He went on to say that this was not the first time that the PCSO had hit the spotlight in recent times. “Remember the PHP 236 million ($4.22 million) lotto draw of October 1, 2022 won by 433 bettors, under Robles’ watch. Was it real or fake? What are the mathematical odds?” he recalled.
During the draw in question, the jackpot was shared by 433 players who all had bet on the winning numbers 09-45-36-27-18-54. All six numbers turned out to be multiples of nine, a result that is as statistically likely as any other lottery outcome. No foul play was ever proven on this or the more recent PCSO draw.
