President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was given a grade of 8 by the chairperson of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) who lauded the order to ban all Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) throughout the country effective last Monday.

ECOP chairperson Edgardo Lacson expressed support for the President’s decision even as he feared that many Filipinos working in POGOs would be affected.

“Of course, the rise in unemployment is a worrisome problem but the social ills, namely, rape, murder, kidnapping, corruption, tax evasion, threats to national security, and other crimes yet to be exposed far outweigh the ensuing jobs loss,” Lacson said in a Viber message.

In a Senate hearing this month, the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) said an average of 57,436 jobs were generated by POGOs from 2019 to 2023.

Most of the jobs, or 37,269, were filled by foreigners, however, while 20,167 went to Filipinos.

Lacson said that POGOs, which started operating in the country in 2003, were granted licenses in 2016 by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation and became taxable at 5 percent of gross earnings in 2021 under Republic Act 11590.

“At an estimated average of P3 billion per year in tax revenue, the Philippine government may have lost P54 billion from the untaxed operation of the POGOs for 18 years from 2003 to 2021,” Lacson said.

Further, he said that as of 2024, the over 600 POGOs, equally divided between licensed and illegal entities, had been identified as the root cause of various societal problems. These include issues such as sex work, human trafficking, kidnapping, murder, torture, money scams, money laundering, bribery, espionage, terrorism, and the recent revelations on the irregular issuance of Philippine passports and fake birth certificates to foreign nationals.

“This led to the election of a certain Chinese citizen as mayor of one town in the north and some foreigners elected as local officials in several towns in the country and many other heinous crimes yet to be discovered,” Lacson told DAILY TRIBUNE.