It comes clear as day what government — action or inaction — should surface on the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators "crime bubble." It carries oblique parallelism with the sugar fiasco that as soon as government response is launched, tons of sugar were found to have been "hoarded" or even "smuggled" into the country.
When law enforcement authorities (i.e. PNP, NBI) raided POGOs in a blind manhunt to round up "illegals" nay "criminals" spirited into the country from China or elsewhere, only a few dozens of largely Chinese nationals were purportedly found as "overstaying" tourists, hence the proper subject of deportation move. However, no court has pulled the lid off to prove that the collateral "crimes" attributed to POGOs — do carry heavy evidentiary weight.
Only police reports drummed up by redundant news accounts, editorials, and commentaries have pushed the panic button of the professed "high social costs" of POGOs sprawled around cities in the National Capital Region and other provincial capitals. A single POGO outlet within a considerable radius is, without doubt, a strong driver of commercial activity and could well be the "turnkey" for vibrant urban growth that cascades immeasurable financial spillover to peripheries.
The more inward view of the economic benefits of POGOs in terms of how much government levies in taxes and fees directly through PAGCOR is in fact, even myopic. There's a larger version as that advanced by "Leechiu's mathematical theory" that calculates some P200 billion could be squeezed from this sunshine industry to bring a lot of financial returns.
With P19 billion and P29 billion for office and residential space rentals, respectively; P6 billion government taxes; P5 billion PAGCOR revenues; P10 billion Meralco electric bills; P54 billion income taxes of foreign workers; P53 billion "fit-out" costs for furniture, fixtures, and technology in firms' worksites; P11 billion in meals in their commissaries; and P1 billion per day at P4,000 per person spending average — all these in one big basket for our annual Gross Domestic Product — cannot be sacrificed nor compromised. Worse, some 347,000 workers — 70,000 of which are Filipinos — will be out of jobs once POGOs fizzled out of existence.
If there are illegal operators or criminals under POGOs' big tent, the government should drop the hammer; organize a Task Force with PAGCOR as the lead agency or regulatory authority in the best position to identify which POGOs have no licenses to operate or have legitimate sub-licenses in the case of smaller POGOs or service providers. Inherent structural problems of weak border control; poor Beijing-Manila exchange of information; fake identities of Chinese tourists that escape the notice of immigration agents; "third-way" racketeering or profiteering schemes, if any — have all got to be "re-engineered" for bureaucratic efficiency.
For over three decades, PAGCOR is the biggest revenue generator and one of the government's staunch allies in nation-building with allocations for "mandated beneficiaries" and underprivileged sectors of society. Now, if a sizeable chunk no longer fills public coffers due to a blanket ban on POGOs, then it becomes beyond difficult to buoy up the country's sinking economy.
Is there a substitute business model that could bring in close to P200 billion annually if POGOs are swept into the dustbin of gaming history as if they never were "profitable workhorses" contributing in large shares to our economic recovery? To this day, the weak empirical support of the narrative nay mere "construct" espoused by media, police, and politicians of a high social cost if and when POGOs are not totally banned — still rears its ugly head — causing undue threat to the industry.
In the televised raid, arrest, and rescue, of several Chinese nationals held in custody, the storylines or script sound convoluted let alone the video images menacingly resembling the garrison state. Lest this dystopia turns into a "black mirror", it's time to burst the crime bubble.
Let PAGCOR police its turf sans interferences. Senate leveraging further for higher taxes or obligations on Chinese-run POGOs is, by itself, an anti-class act it should avoid.
