“Regulation, not a sweeping gaming ban, is the best answer to the issue of revenue generation”
THE President of the Republic has spoken: Ban the POGOs! They have abused and made a mockery of our laws.
In a nutshell, those were the words President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr uttered during his 3rd State of the Nation Address on July 22 afternoon with millions of Filipinos here and abroad glued to their TV sets watching him and hearing his directive and more pronouncements.
Many of these illegal POGOs or the Philippines-based Offsho re Gaming Operators have run afoul with the law because of their criminal activities, ranging from illegal gambling to trafficking to rape and abuse of their victims.
Their criminal acts drew the nation’s ire, provoking the President to declare an outright ban.
Heeding the presidential order, PAGCOR chairman and CEO Al Tengco, right after the SONA, announced ways to enforce the ban even as two leaders of the House cautioned their lawmaking colleagues and law enforcers against acting hastily.
Tengco was quoted by Reuters as saying: “No problem in closing down POGOs because I can invoke national security and the President’s order.”
The PAGCOR chairman, voted “Executive of the Year” by a global publication, correctly stressed the ban would cut across various industries — from gaming to labor-employment to skills upscaling to livelihood retraining for around 40,000 people who would be displaced.
Law enforcers must now act in coordination with PAGCOR and other agencies to prevent these firms from going underground and avoiding taxes even as Tengco was quick to add the government faced the loss of around P23 billion a year in license fees and taxes on the POGOs.
Amidst these grim possibilities, the economist of the House, Rep. Joey Salceda called on PAGCOR and other regulators to find a way of enforcing the ban without affecting the IGLs (internet gaming licensees).
“POGO is just a small part of a bigger pie called IGL, which is the Internet Gaming Licensees; that’s 43 percent of PAGCOR. Only P12 billion goes to POGO,” Salceda told reporters at the SONA venue.
The trick is to go technical and find out what sets POGO and IGLs apart, according to Salceda.
Weighing in on another but totally related issue — ban on online gaming espoused in the Senate, the PAGCOR chief executive invoked real and actual revenue losses (P40 billion annually) in an attempt to convince the Senate to drop the proposed ban.
“If that proposal will be passed, and in these difficult times that everyone is facing today, I believe P40 billion is a big amount we will forgo,” Tengco said at the Senate hearing.
PAGCOR was able to collect P13.7 billion from gross gaming revenues for online gaming alone by the end of 2023.
For the first half of this year, Tengco said PAGCOR generated P17.5 billion from online gambling.
“That’s why, if we will be able to turn the non-registered into registered (ones) or the illegals to become legal, I am very confident PAGCOR will generate anywhere from P38 billion to around P42 billion from the online gaming licensees alone,” he said.
You can forgive Tengco for his bullish remarks because PAGCOR’S figures don’t lie.
In the first half of the year, PAGCOR chalked up a hefty net income of P6.56 billion, more than double the previous figures, buoyed by sweeping reforms Tengco introduced under the new administration.
The total gross gaming revenue for the gaming industry also posted a robust growth, climbing 19.21 percent to P194.743 billion.
These gains enabled PAGCOR to remit P31.82 billion in cash dividends to the National Treasury in the first half, up from P22.62 billion in the same period last year.
Nearly half the gaming revenues, or 45.53 percent, were derived from the online gaming sector—comprising e-Games, e-Bingo, and bingo grantees—generating a total of P20.66 billion.
Tengco hoped PAGCOR is on course to surpass the P100 billion annual gross revenue milestone this year, driven by remarkable growth in the e-Games sector and the burgeoning interest from players and investors eyeing the Philippine market.
Tengco said if the gray market was properly regulated, PAGCOR would be able to grab a taxable amount — between P200 billion and P250 billion- a windfall which in turn would benefit the public and the country.
This goes without saying PAGCOR is sitting pretty amid the thankless job of regulating a blue-chip industry that helps fund some government projects and charity, Tengco said.
PAGCOR has also been monitoring not only the illegal online games but also other classifications like e-sabong, Facebook ads, mobile applications, offshore sites, spam messages, among others.
Regulation, not a sweeping gaming ban, is the best answer to the issue of revenue generation.
On this count, Tengco scores high in my book.
(MTV, book author/publisher, is president/chief executive officer of Media Touchstone Ventures, Inc. and is the president and executive director of the Million Trees Foundation Inc., a non-government outfit advocating tree-planting and environmental protection.)
