THE Philippines’ 44 Internet Gaming Licensees (IGLs) are all covered by a Presidential ban on offshoring gaming, the gaming regulator told a Senate hearing.
“The ban is for all, very clear. The President’s order is very clear, ‘I am ordering PAGCOR to wind down’,” Alejandro H. Tengco, chief of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR), said at the hearing.
PAGCOR will “wind down” all existing Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), which Mr. Tengco said also include “the 44 IGLs.”
Solicitor General Menardo I. Guevarra also told the panel that the ban announced by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., in his third address to Congress covered all POGOs “without qualification.”
“Although it’s a one-liner, his policy statement was clear: Without qualification, that all POGOs are banned effective immediately,” he said.
PAGCOR changed its terminology for POGOs to IGLs in late 2023.
In his address, Mr. Marcos ordered PAGCOR to shut down the POGO industry by the end of 2024. He also asked the Department of Labor and Employment to find new jobs for Filipino POGO workers.
He said POGOs, which cater mainly to Chinese markets, have been “disguised” as “legitimate entities” but their operations have ventured into illicit areas like financial scams, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, torture and murder.
“The grave abuse and disrespect for our system of laws must stop,” he said, which received a standing ovation from legislators.
When asked by Senator Ana Theresia Hontiveros-Baraquel if the ban also covers POGOs inside economic zones, Mr. Guevarra said: “That’s what it seemed to us, that all POGOs are banned without classification.”
But Mr. Tengco said the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (CEZA), which has its own charter, can issue its own licenses.
“That’s where I can see a complication, but we will see how we can cover it,” he said.
Under an executive order issued by ex-President Rodrigo R. Duterte in 2017, only PAGCOR and three investment promotion agencies — CEZA, the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone Free Port Authority and Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan, can license online gambling operations.
Congress during Mr. Duterte’s term passed a law taxing POGOs to legalize them, despite concerns about the ensuing social costs. Chinese President Xi Jinping had asked him to ban their operations.
Philippine authorities have been raiding POGOs linked to crimes like human trafficking.
The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission in early July told BusinessWorld that 17 POGOs are under the jurisdiction of CEZA.
Meanwhile, former Duterte spokesman Herminio L. Roque, Jr. said he was an incorporator of the registered owner of a house in Tuba, Benguet where two foreigners linked to POGOs were arrested.
Mr. Roque said he lived in the house when he left government but noted that he doesn’t have “an interest in the corporation that owns it.”
He said the house has been leased to a Chinese national named Huan Yun, who, Mr. Roque said, possesses an alien certificate of registration and a 9G or pre-arranged working visa.
Ms. Yun can enter the subdivision because she is a “registered lessee” and is “registered with the homeowners association,” he added.
PAGCOR’s Mr. Tengco said at a previous Senate hearing that Mr. Roque, had helped Lucky South 99, a POGO firm that was raided in Porac, Pampanga, reapply for a license and settle its arrears.
Mr. Tengco said the former Palace spokesman was named as head of legal in the organization chart that Lucky South 99 submitted to PAGCOR when it reapplied for its license. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza
