MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) on Friday assured that no offshore gaming company in the country is operated by Chinese firms.
“No companies are operated by Chinese corporations because mostly the corporations are offshore companies which have local companies here in the Philippines,” Victor Padilla, senior manager of Pagcor’s policy and offshore gaming licensing division, said during the House budget hearing on the agency’s 2020 budget.
According to Padilla, there are 60 licensed Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (Pogos) in the country but only 48 are operational.
He also assured that Pogos do not stream in any country that does not allow online gambling.
This is in response to the call of a Chinese official, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang, to “ban all online gambling” in the Philippines.
READ: China to Philippines: Ban all online gambling
“In our manual, we do not stream in any country which prohibits online gaming or gambling,” Padilla said.
“So the statement of the Chinese (official), I don’t think it’s also considered in the gaming perspective. I think it’s more of the Chinese employees perspective,” he added.
He further pointed out that even if there are “a lot” of Chinese online gambling players, it is not guaranteed that “they are all from China.”
“We are sure that a lot of players are Chinese because we all know that there are a lot of Chinese people all over the world,” he said.
“I think, in their culture, they like gambling. But it’s not automatic that if the players are Chinese, they are all from China. The players are mostly Chinese, but we are not sure if in fact, they are all from China,” the Pagcor official also said.
Earlier this month, China also asked the Philippine government to “punish” Pogos, casinos, and other forms of gambling entities that purportedly illegally recruits Chinese citizens.
READ: China wants Philippines to ‘punish’ POGOs, casinos illegally recruiting Chinese workers
The Chinese Embassy claimed that a large number of Chinese citizens had been illegally recruited to work in the Philippine gambling industry with some “even lured into and cheated to work illegally with only tourist visas.”
It also said that a “huge amount” of Chinese funds are also “illegally flown out” of China and into the Philippines through cross-border money laundering. /kga