Dole assures support for displaced Pogo workers

Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma —Noy Morcoso/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma assured employees of Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos) that they will be taken care of amid President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s order to ban said gaming operators in the country

The banning of all Pogos was announced by Marcos in his third State of the Nation Address (Sona) on July 22.

READ: Marcos: ‘All Pogos are banned!’

“Of course, at the Department of Labor and Employment (Dole), our mandate is not only job creation; it also includes job preservation,” Laguesma said in an ambush interview after the Sona.

READ: Live Updates: SONA 2024

“Of course, we have some concerns, but that is a directive that must be implemented,” he added, referring to the banning of all Pogos.

He noted that this development should not be considered something that would increase the unemployment rate in the country.

“Let’s not think that unemployment will increase again because that is really part of the challenges faced by Dole,” Laguesma said.

During Marcos’s Sona, he said, “Effective today, all Pogos are banned.”

“I hereby instruct the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation to wind down and cease the operations of Pogos by the end of the year,” he added.

He then ordered Dole in partnership with the administration’s economic managers, to use the time “between now and then” to find new jobs for Filipinos who would be displaced.