POGO – it stands for Philippine Gaming Offshore Operations. It has been in the news lately, with Sen. Joel Villanueva delivering a privileged speech in the Senate last June voicing concern over so many foreign workers brought in by POGO operators. He was concerned, he said, with loss of jobs to foreigners at a time when the Philippines needs all the jobs it can generate for Filipino workers.
The controversy went up another notch when Secretary of Defense Delfin Lorenzana warned against the danger of POGOs being set up near Philippine military installations, like the Philippine National Police’s Camp Crame and the Armed Forces’ Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City, the Philippine Army’s camp in Taguig, Rizal, and the Philippine Air Force’s Villamor Air Base in Pasay. The many Chinese workers in these POGOs could be used to spy on the military bases for China, Secretary Lorenzana said.
Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua deplored the statement. It would be like saying Overseas Filipino Workers now in China might spy on that country’s bases, he said. Secretary Lorenzana denounced this comment as “preposterous,” saying OFWS are there simply to work.
In the wake of this sharp exchange, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) decided to suspend its acceptance of any new POGO applications. China Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China appreciated this decision, but “we hope the Philippines will go further and ban all online gambling.”
All the while, China has been against online gambling operations in the Philippines and elsewhere in the world catering to Chinese gamblers. Gambling, including online gambling, is illegal in China. It is allowed only in the Special Autonomous Region of Macau, which has retained some of its old privileges under the Portuguese, much like Hong Kong, which has kept some of its rights and practices under the British after these two regions were returned to China in 1999 and 1997, respectively.
After the China Foreign Ministry spokesman expressed hope that the Philippines would ban all online gambling, Secretary Lorenzana said he would raise the issue to his cabinet cluster.
Online gambling operators paid P579 million in taxes in 2018 and P789 million in the first half of 2019, with another P9 billion still to be paid. This is how much the Philippine government has earned in taxes from the POGOs now in the country. Pagcor said licensing fees and royalties from POGOs are likely to hit R8 billion before the end of the year.
The Philippine real estate industry weighed in with the information that POGOs in the country now lease some 1.1 million square meters of office floor space – up from 200,000 square meters at the start in 2016. Of this total, 65 percent are leased by Chinese POGOs and the rest by other nationalities. If the Chinese POGOs are closed down, an industry official said, it will be bad for the industry, but not so bad because the POGOs paid advance deposits of one to two years and their Philippine landlords will have much time to look for other tenants.
Against this is the complaint that the POGOs have brought in some 10,000 foreign workers needed to deal with the non-English-speaking Chinese gamblers; and the fear of some officials that these workers may spy for China.
It is all up to us to make the right decision.
