It’s been a year since the Makati City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 143 issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) and writ of injunction, which stalled the bidding process of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s (PCSO) P10.9-billion Nationwide Online Lottery System (NOLS) project. In an auspicious turn of events, the Supreme Court (SC) recently ruled in favor of the charity agency.
If the TRO and injunction were not issued last year against the NOLS project, it would have been fully operational by now and would have probably contributed revenues for the government’s medical and charity assistance programs.
Makati City RTC Branch 143 Judge Maximo de Leon favored the Philippine Gaming and Management Corp. (PGMC), PCSO’s Lotto online system provider for Luzon, which claimed it has “exclusive right” as lotto system provider of PCSO for Luzon.
The case reached the International Chamber of Commerce-International Court of Arbitration, which subsequently junked the complaint.
The SC Third Division granted the government corporation’s petition to set aside the August 3, 2017, writ of preliminary injunction issued by Judge de Leon.
The court also found that the RTC committed grave abuse of discretion in granting respondent PGMC’s application for injunctive relief. A writ of preliminary injunction is issued to “prevent threatened or continuous irremediable injury to some of the parties before their claims can be thoroughly studied and adjudicated.”
If there’s abuse in the judicial process, there should be someone who is liable to the law because the judge may have disregarded the interest of the Filipino people. Let’s just wait for the SC’s action against these people who are abusing their power.
NOLS has only one system and can validate all tickets bought from all over the country. This is the first system to undergo public bidding since the 1995 contract, which is only rightful according to law.
No contract lasts a “lifetime.” In the two decades that PGMC has become the system provider for Luzon, its contract finally expired in August. That’s why it lost the case.
Subsequently, the PCSO extended the contract of Pacific Online System Corp. (POSC), while bidding is being conducted in preparation for the implementation of NOLS, probably in the second quarter next year.
POSC is the system provider for Visayas-Mindanao, including Luzon, but its contract expired on July 31, 2018.
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