Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Tuesday, September 20 said he will hold a public hearing regarding the various issues hounding the operations of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGO) in the country on Thursday.
Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, said he will conduct the hearing to assess the state of the government’s revenue collection from these Chinese-backed firms.
“I'll have a hearing on Thursday on the revenue and economic benefits, or the lack of it, about POGO,” Gatchalian said.
“Then we can assess holistically the operations of POGO,” he further said.
Invited to the hearing are officials from the Department of Finance (DOF), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), and Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor).
“We will examine the revenue collection of government from POGO,” he said.
Several lawmakers have joined calls to stop the POGO operations in the country in light of the series of kidnapping, bribery and rise of criminality, especially involving Chinese and Filipino-Chinese citizens.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros noted that since 2020, calls for POGOs to “pay up and pack up” remain unheeded.
“In 2020, I filed PSR (Senate Resolution) 368 expressing the sense of the Senate to disallow the resumption of POGO operations due to the financial, social, and human costs. As Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality, I led the hearings on the link between the rise of POGO industry and the increase in the cases of prostitution and human trafficking,” Hontiveros pointed out.
“These investigations all led us to the same conclusion: the social cost of POGOs outweigh the perceived benefits,” she said.
After her panel’s investigation on crime-related incidents involving POGOs, Hontiveros released a committee report recommending that the government revisit its policy on POGOs.
“I am glad that there are renewed calls for the complete banning of POGOs. POGOs have not brought anything good to our country. Palayasin na dapat sila sa lalong madaling panahon (We should get rid of them at the soonest possible time),” she said.
Sen. Cynthia Villar also said she supports calls for POGO operations to stop and urged the government to weigh in on the need to protect the country’s national security, noting the entry of various syndicates in the country with the entry of foreign nationals working in the POGO industry.
Sen. Imee Marcos also said President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. is inclined to support calls to ban POGO operations in the country.