In a matter of months, the government will unveil Entertainment City Manila, also known as Pagcor City Manila on an eight-square kilometre reclaimed lot of Manila Bay.
The gambling and resort complex was initiated by the state-run Pagcor or Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. in 2007 through investments from private companies that set up resorts and casinos. Entertainment City Manila has been declared a PEZA-approved economic zone, where investors will be granted incentives in the form of tax holidays.
Investment figures on the Las Vegas-like gaming centre vary, from a low of US $3 billion to a high of US $20 billion. The complex is hyped as the new Macau, a gambling haven that will lure foreign tourists, especially high rollers.
The gambling component of tourism must be yielding big returns because investors who poured big money read like the country’s who’s who in business.
One is port magnate Enrique Razon, who is said to have plunked US $1.2 billion in the Pagcor project through Bloomberry Resorts Corp. Razon must be excited to see the completion of the resort hotel and casino Solaire Manila early next month.
Another is SM Investments Corp. through its subsidiary Belle Corp., which is said to be putting the final touches to Belle Grande Manila Bay. The gleaming hotel casino has won a license from Pagcor although like Razon’s Bloomberry, Belle Corp. does not have experience in running a casino resort. Belle Grande Manila Bay will have to lean on Melco Crown, a gaming firm backed by gaming moguls Stanley Ho of Macau and James Packer of Australia.
The third player is Genting Hong Kong and Alliance Global Inc. which set up Resorts World Bayshore. AGI is visible in real estate, food and beverage and its financial muscle is joined with Malaysian businessman Lim Kok Thay, whose assets are tied with casinos operating in Vietnam.
The gambling boom has attracted a fourth player, Universal Entertainment whose main man, Japanese billionaire Kazuo Okada, is in the middle of a probe by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Okada is a major partner of Las Vegas casino magnate Steve Wynn.
They were close buddies until Wynn charged Okada this year for violating compliance rules, by paying some US $110,000 in entertainment and other expenses for gaming regulators from the Philippines and South Korea. Wynn and Okada are entangled in a legal case and should Wynn get to pin down his Japanese partner on a bribery charge, the former will get a business advantage.
Reuters reported this week that the FBI has come across incriminating documents that point to the receipt of US $5 million in bribes by Rodolfo Soriano, a consultant of Pagcor during the time of Chairman Efraim Genuino. The monies were said to be part of the US $40 million that Okada’s Universal Entertainment, through its affiliate, Aruze US had set aside to make business matters in the Philippines easier to handle.
Okada had already invested US $300 million in acquiring a reclaimed lot in Manila Bay and was reportedly lobbying to win more concessions from Pagcor through Soriano.
In September 2008, after Universal announced plans to build a 2,050-room hotel and casino in the Manila Bay area, Aruze transferred US $35 million to Subic Leisure, a company based in the Virgin Islands. In May 2010, US $5 million was transferred to Soriano via a shell company in Hong Kong.
In the process of trying to win incentives which included exemption from the 60-40 equity rule in the matter of foreign investments, Kazuo Okada put up Eagle I and Eagle II to guarantee his investments in the Pagcor project. Who else could do the job better than people with connections in the state regulatory body.
The stockholders of Okada’s companies are listed as Paulo Bombasi, a former Pagcor consultant under Genuino, Manuel Camacho, who owns Platinum Gaming and Entertainment Corporation. Platinum is said to have purchased 60 percent of Eagle II shares. Rodolfo Soriano is also a stockholder. Aside from being a Pagcor Consultant, Soriano reportedly owns Ophicus Real Corp., a company identified with Genuino’s SEAA Corp.
The prevalence of information technology has robbed certain idiomatic expressions of their meaning, like, “Tell that to the Marines.” The derision stems from the sea soldiers’ supposed lack of information and connectivity with the world when they are deployed for service at sea. But with the implosion of info technology we can no longer tell the marines that Genuino didn’t know what his gofer Soriano was up to when he met with Okada five times from 2008 to 2010.
These Pagcor men must be in a hurry to seal agreements with Okada because the Arroyo administration was about to end. Genuino cannot escape suspicion that his bright boys were just fronting for him in Eagle I and Eagle II.
Reports of crooked deals by previous Pagcor officials should prompt President Benigno S. Aquino to review and audit the Pagcor project. For starters, how can the government maximize tax collections if it grants exemptions to gambling casinos? They do not exactly foster hard work and discipline.
In fact gambling has been associated with organized crime, increase in pathological gamblers, not to mention the rise of violence and crimes against property. The President cannot sustain the $20-billion Pagcor project without supporting gambling.
It raises the question if P-Noy is still treading the righteous path or “matuwid na daan.”