During the pandemic, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) was the biggest contributor to government coffers when almost all sources of revenue had plunged.
Due to the lockdowns and community restrictions, businesses were closed or limited their operations, which was a drain on the collections of both the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs.
It was then that the economic managers of the previous regime considered online gaming, mainly the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) and the electronic or e-sabong, as an immediate solution to the dearth of cash.
Debates brewed on the consequences of the move since it had been proven that tapping vice as a source of money would have a social payback. The surprise package in President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address was his call for a total ban on POGOs, a decisive move since the government would have to compensate for the lost revenue, which is no joking matter.
It was, however, necessary to eliminate what had turned into a breeding ground for not only addiction to online games, but criminal activities inflicted mainly on the workers in the POGO enclaves.
E-sabong has contributed at least P400 million a month to PAGCOR, which was among the main sources of funds for amelioration programs during the Covid-19 devastation.
Based on PAGCOR figures, the four licensed e-sabong operators contributed P1.6 billion in just four months. The operators were required to contribute a minimum of P75 million per month.
At its peak, e-sabong was bringing in more than half a billion pesos monthly to PAGCOR.
Former President Rodrigo Duterte in May 2022 issued a ban on online cockfighting after some sabungeros who worked for the operators went missing. POGOs are a different matter, as the operators poured in huge amounts to set up the online gaming hubs.
The biggest worry is that imposing a total ban on POGOs would have a backlash on legitimate investments since it was the government’s idea to put up the communities to contain the operations in centralized locations.
The setting up of the hubs was in response to complaints of throngs of foreign workers becoming a problem to the police, particularly at night when they disturbed communities where they were renting houses.
PAGCOR raised P56 billion in gross gaming revenues (GGR) from online games in 2023, of which P13.7 billion was used for government projects.
From license fees, PAGCOR is expected to earn P42 billion this year, which will leave a huge vacuum after the total ban.
Nonetheless, the ban would stem from the abuse by the POGO hubs of their licenses, an extreme case of which are the international scam operations that dupe mostly Chinese who lose their savings to the nefarious operations.
Evidence of workers being tortured for not meeting their scam quotas was also found during government raids of the facilities.
As soon as President Marcos hammered on the ban, sources in the industry said the fix was already in the works, as some of the operations will be granted an “internet gaming license — which is a POGO with a different collar.”
The third SoNA was widely acclaimed for the resolute move to ban POGOs, a backpedal by merely curing the problem to retain the huge money flowing from it would be unacceptable.
President Marcos has spoken — a total ban means all POGOs must stop. The question that follows is if all the lucrative online gaming operations would just be restricted. For the good of the Filipinos, the total ban must be total.