Gaming regulator Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) flagged a disinformation campaign in the guise of a memorandum purportedly ordering local government units to immediately terminate the operations of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators or POGOs by August, saying that the memo was fake.

Jessa Mariz Fernandez, head of PAGCOR’s Offshore Gaming Licensing Department, said the supposed memo to LGUs in Metro Manila dated 26 July was a forged version of an earlier memorandum she issued last 23 July, a day after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address.

“We have not issued a memorandum ordering LGUs to immediately close down POGO operations in their jurisdiction because the President’s order was very clear: We have until the end of the year to wind down POGO operations, and we will follow that,” Fernandez said.

“This is a clear disinformation intended to create chaos and confusion,” she added.

Senator Christopher “Bong” Go, meanwhile, said the ban on POGOs should not be selective.

Go made the statement days after PAGCOR Chairperson Alejandro Tengco appealed to Malacañang for 12 of the 43 POGO companies in the country to be spared from the ban as these were customer service agents for gaming companies.

Earlier, Go backed President Marcos’s pronouncement during his 3rd SoNA that all POGOs in the country are banned “effective immediately.”