MANILA, Philippines - The Senate is also now poking into the lease contract that the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) entered into in 1995 with a lotto machine supplier.

During the Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on Wednesday morning, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile ordered the PCSO officials to provide the committee with the financial history of the agreement.

“You could have also saved the billions that the government spent due to wrong judgment,” he said.

The contract refers to the deal with the Philippine Gaming and Management Corp.-Berjaya and Pacific Online for the lease of thousands of lotto machines.

The agreement allows the PCSO to buy the machines at the end of an 8-year contract. Instead, the previous leadership decided to renew instead the lease with a higher percentage of gross sales paid to the contractor.

“I also suggest that you answer the relationship of the leasing company with the Malaysian officials of Berjaya…in operation with PCSO,” he said.

Former PCSO chairman Manuel “Manoling” Morato justified the office’s decision not to buy the machines.

He said it was the Supreme Court in 1994 that allowed the then PCSO board to choose the lease option.

“The SC advised PCSO to go into a lease contract, since buying them would be very expensive," he explained.