The good thing is that the court has honored his winnings. I thought when a ticket is already destroyed, it's automatically non-acceptable, but the ruling of the court favors him but the sad part is after nine long years. What kind of justice system is that?
I have followed this story and the high court is right in presenting the decision to award the prize based on the article provided by OP
The High Court also explained that the circumstances surrounding the fact that Mendoza won the lotto were clearly established. Despite the RTC and CA’s characterization of Mendoza’s evidence as secondary, the SC said “secondary evidence may be resorted to when the original document is unavailable.”
Hence the secondary evidence pointed him to be the winner and besides no other came forward to claim the prize only him, It is a total injustice if he is deprived of the prize when there is a piece of physical evidence presented although partly damaged, this is a landmark case and the court have uphold justice that the winner deserves his prize, the winner suffers a lot and its not good to go to another hardship all through his life by having his appeal denied.
Certainly, the Supreme Court made the right call, and I'd say justice was served. However, what irks me about this story is that it took them a delay of 9 years to reach a decision on such a simple case. Considering it's a government agency involved, you'd think they could have expedited the investigation.
I don't know, perhaps the lottery winner gradually lost hope of ever getting their prize, so they must have been extremely happy when the decision finally came out.