The Senate plenary hall (Senate PRIB)

The Senate Ways and Means Committee chaired by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian has submitted to Malacañang its chairman’s report seeking the ban of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) in the country.

Gatchalian said he submitted the report to Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin in a bid to show the executive branch the reasons and study why POGO operations in the country should be banned.

He said that in the last budget hearing, Bersamin had said that they are waiting for the Senate committee report so that they would have a basis in banning POGO operations.

Gatchalian also said that the executive branch would want to see the recommendations so that it would come up with ways of implementing the recommendations.

He said that based on their findings, “The Filipino people stand to lose more than they will gain from allowing POGOs to continue operating in the Philippines.”

“In light of this, we recommend the permanent banning of offshore gaming operations in the Philippines,” Gatchalian said in his chairman’s report.

It had undertaken public hearings on the effect to Philippine economy by POGO operations.

But the Senate public order and dangerous drugs committee had recommended the operation of POGOs in a controlled area similar to economic zones.

Senator Ronald ‘’Bato’’ dela Rosa, committee chairman, said he does not recommend the immediate banning of POGO operations.

Instead, he said that these should be phased out in one to two years or two to three years depending on the vote of senators during a plenary debate.

Dela Rosa had told Senate reporters said the operation of POGOs in a controlled zone is recommended so that government could strictly supervise their operations and avoid the occurrence of crimes.

At present, POGOs operations are scattered in the Luzon area such as Paranaque, Pasay, Cavite, Pampanga, Tarlac and Cagayan.

The recommendation to ban POGOs, he said, is premised squarely on the detailed findings of the legislative inquiry, one of which finds the POGO business model as inherently unstable due to the outsized foreign regulatory and political risks involved.

“By triangulating POGO spending figures by currency and foreign national employment figures, the Committee found substantial basis to conclude that a sizable majority of customers placing bets through POGO operators are Chinese nationals,” he said.

In essence, Gatchalian said Chinese nationals are using offshore gaming operations based in the Philippines as a loophole to circumvent Chinese criminal law.

Thus, he said, it is no surprise that the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Philippines has released several public statements in relation to its citizens involved in gambling in the Philippines, on September 27, 2021, September 22, 2022, and October 11, 2022.

“The strongest statement was the most recent, when the spokesperson of the Chinese Embassy said: ‘Crimes induced by and associated with POGO not only harm China’s interests and China-Philippines relations, but also hurt the interests of the Philippines. It is therefore widely believed that social costs of POGO far outweigh its economic benefits to the Philippines in the long run and POGO should be tackled  from the root so as to address the social ills in a sweeping manner’,” he said.

“I can imagine the Philippine government would react in a similar way if a foreign ally were allowing Filipinos to bet on prohibited games like jueteng or e-sabong through online casinos housed in another country,” he pointed out.

Gatchalian also said the POGO industry poses troubling social risks in the Philippines, noting that the Philippine National Police (PNP), during its investigation, has said there were at least 102 POGO-related crimes reported between the period of Jan. 1, 2017 and Jan. 23, 2023; 316 people were victimized by these crimes, the vast majority of the victims—214—were Chinese, while 28 were Filipinos.

“The most common crime reported in connection to the POGO industry was the heinous crime of kidnap-for-ransom, with 30 cases recorded during the five-year period. 14 cases of trafficking of persons were also recorded, along with 13 violations of the Access Devices Regulation Act and 10 cases of kidnapping and serious illegal detention,” he said.

Gatchalian also said that based on the panel’s inquiry and findings, the POGO industry also appears to be a potent source of financial crime, citing a report of the Anti-Money Laundering Council that POGOs and their service providers are highly vulnerable to money laundering.