Reconsider bill vs online gambling — PAGCOR

By John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporter

THE PHILIPPINE Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) on Thursday renewed its call for the Senate to reconsider its proposal to outlaw online gambling, saying it is the future of the industry and citing P35 billion in expected revenues this year from the sector.

“Most of the biggest land-based operators in the US and Canada, if not all, have online gaming operations, that’s as much I can report to this committee,”  PAGCOR Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Alejandro H. Tengco told a Senate ways and means committee hearing looking into a bill seeking to ban gambling operations amid the government’s ban of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs).

“This is the trend, and I think that this will be the future of gaming, and most jurisdictions around the world are legalizing online gaming, even the first world countries.”

He said the industry, which is expected to account for about 35% of PAGCOR’s revenues this year, could generate more jobs for Filipinos with countries around the world legalizing electronic gaming.

Online gambling brought the government about P22.5 billion in revenues last year, the state gaming regulator’s chairman said, reiterating that his agency aims to generate about P100 billion in total revenues this year.

In the first eight months of this year, the electronic gambling industry generated close to P30 billion in revenues, Mr. Tengco said.

Based on the Department of Finance’s initial findings on online gaming revenues last year, Finance Assistant Secretary Karlo Fermin S. Adriano told the same hearing that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) collected at least P13.3 billion in taxes from online gambling last year, but said this number was “highly preliminary” and could still increase.

“There are still some inconsistencies (in PAGCOR’s data) so we’re still cleaning the data,” the Finance official said. “It is highly likely that the P13.3 billion will be the floor.”

Senators earlier filed separate bills seeking to repeal a law taxing POGOs after President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. ordered the industry shut down in July, and another banning online gambling due to social costs.

Congress under former President Rodrigo R. Duterte passed Republic Act 11590, the Act Taxing POGOs as a mechanism for legalizing the industry, amid concerns about their social costs.

“It would be challenging to resist the evolving landscape of gaming,” John Paolo R. Rivera, senior research fellow at the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, said in a Viber message.

“Government must be vigilant in regulating this new scheme and be on the lookout in managing negative unintended consequences like what happened with POGO operations disrupting social fabric….”

Labor Secretary Bienvenido E. Laguesma on Wednesday said his agency is preparing to help around 27,000 workers expected to lose their jobs once the ban on POGOs takes effect by the end of the year.

“We must regulate it (online gambling) properly, and generate revenue for PAGCOR, which we give back to the country and to the Filipino people,” Mr. Tengco said.