Salceda: Allow legal Pogos to stay

MANILA, Philippines — Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Salceda still believes that legal Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogo) should be allowed to continue operating in the country, noting that the industry is gradually becoming more Filipino than Chinese.

Salceda, in a statement on Wednesday, said that 25,000 Filipinos are direct Pogo employees, while 30,000 of 65,000 indirect hires are also Filipinos.

“The legal sector is now also becoming less and less Chinese and more Filipino. Filipinos now account for as many as 25,000 direct Pogo employees, with Vietnamese nationals now also outnumbering Chinese nationals,” Salceda, who heads the House of Representatives committee on ways and means, said.

“Among indirect hires, Pagcor cites indirect industry estimates that put the number of indirect offshore online gaming workers at close to 100,000, of which roughly 65,000 are Filipinos and 30,000 [are] foreign nationals,” he added.

Regarding the crackdown on illegal Pogos, Salceda said that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration has done a good job of weeding out illegal Pogos from legal ones. 

Salceda, however, said he believes the government’s efforts will be negated once a total ban is imposed.

“Since Pagcor began cracking down hard on illegal Pogos under President Marcos’s administration, tax and regulatory fee collections have increased dramatically from fewer licensees. We are cutting out the weeds so that the flowers can grow,” he said.

“(But) if you close down the whole sector, good players and bad, you put to waste all the efforts of the Marcos administration to crack down on the bad players,” he added.

Salceda also echoed previous sentiments by House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez — that a total ban on Pogos might only lead to workers within legal operations moving underground, where tracking and taxation will be impossible.

“If you close down the whole sector, the aliens, the existing Pogo clientele, and the hardware and investments already made will have nowhere to go but the illegal sector. It’s going to be a disaster we are ill-equipped to address. Our law enforcement does not have the resources, the capabilities, or even the training to infiltrate and apprehend an expanded black market for gaming,” he said.

“Here’s my suggestion to my friend, (Finance) Secretary (Ralph) Recto, and the economic team: Let’s plow back some of the increased internet gaming tax revenues on improved law enforcement, especially in intelligence gathering and infiltration. The best time for it is the upcoming budget season, when we return from our session break,” he added.

Recto recently said that they have submitted a recommendation to the President for the total ban of Pogos in the country due to problems in how the games are being run.

Last June 11, Makabayan filed House Bill (HB) No. 10525, or the proposed Anti-Pogo Act of 2024, which will revoke existing Pogo licenses and ban other future Pogo companies from operating. 

Aside from allegations of human trafficking, there have been claims that individuals may have been killed inside Pogo hubs. 

Last June 25, Philippine National Police chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil confirmed that there were “unreported killings” within the Pogo hubs raided in Central Luzon.

A raid was conducted in a Pogo hub in Porac last June 4, where 186 foreign and Filipino workers were rescued from an alleged human trafficking ring.

There were also reports that some of the employees were tortured or sold for sex.

Before this, 371 Filipinos and 497 foreigners were rescued from an illegal Pogo in Bamban, Tarlac, which was also raided for alleged involvement in human trafficking.