Pagcor to exert full efforts to end POGO ops by yearend — Tengco

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) on Monday said it would exert full efforts to implement the total ban on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) in the country.

Responding to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s order to cease POGO operations by the end of the year, Pagcor chairman and chief executive officer Alejandro Tengco said the regulator would study how it would implement the said order.

"The President has spoken; he has given instructions to Pagcor and basically to me to maybe already have a process because the President wants no more operations by the end of the year,” Tengco told reporters in an ambush interview.

“So, by 2025, we will do everything we can to ensure that no internet gaming license operates anymore,” he added a few minutes after Marcos declared the ban.

Marcos announced the total ban on POGO operations in his third State of the Nation Address which received huge applause from lawmakers and guests in the gallery.

“This disruption to our society and the desecration of our country must stop,” he said, referring to the series of crimes linked to the operations of POGO in the country.

Such remarks earned him a standing ovation from the audience.

“Effective today, all POGOs are banned. I hereby instruct PAGCOR to wind down and cease the operations of POGOs by the end of the year,” Marcos said.

Feasible?

Tengco said it would not be fair to declare whether the timeline given by the President to cease POGO operations in the country is feasible.

“It wouldn't be fair for me to answer you now because the order was just given earlier and we still need to study it but we will do everything we can,” he said.

“We're talking about the legal ones here because, with the illegal ones, there's really nothing we can do,” he added.