THE Supreme Court has ordered the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) to pay Antonio F. Mendoza, who won a Lotto 6/42 draw with a damaged ticket, P12,391,600 as the jackpot prize.
Mendoza placed the bet on October 2, 2014, but his granddaughter crumpled the winning ticket, prompting his daughter to try to straighten it with an iron, partially blackening it.
This left visible only the first two digits of the bet combination, the outlet from which the ticket was bought, the date of purchase, the draw date, and, partially, the time the ticket was bought.
The PCSO rejected his prize claim, saying his ticket had been damaged and could not be validated.
But after several hearings, the House of Representatives Committee on Games and Amusements recommended awarding the prize to Mendoza after evidence established his ownership of the winning ticket.
The PCSO, however, was unmoved, prompting Mendoza to file a complaint.
The Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Balayan, Batangas ruled in his favor, saying the damage to the ticket justified the use of secondary evidence.
The Court of Appeals (CA) upheld the win but denied attorney's fees and moral damages.
In a 17-page Decision penned by Associate Justice Jhosep Y. Lopez, the Supreme Court’s Second Division found ambiguity in the PCSO Amended Games and Rules and Regulations for the Lotto 6/42 Rules, favoring Mendoza's interpretation that selecting the winning numbers mattered most.
PCSO had argued that presentation of the complete physical ticket was a condition for the payment of the prize money.
Noting that both the RTC and the CA had characterized the pieces of evidence presented by Mendoza as secondary evidence to establish that Mendoza did indeed bet on the winning numbers, the Supreme Court explained that secondary evidence may be resorted to when the original document is unavailable. (CTL)