Pagcor warns against adding more to list of beneficiaries

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) warned of a reduction in the monetary shares it gives to mandated beneficiaries if Congress approves all other requests for Pagcor funding that are not included in the corporation’s mandate.

“Right now, we need a lot of special purchase of new equipment, purchase of cameras, etc., in order to compete with all these new casinos that will open. So if we’re going to charge everything to Pagcor, we will not definitely be able to compete with all these new casinos,” Pagcor chairman and chief executive officer Cristino Naguiat told a Senate hearing on Monday.

“If we’re not able to compete with all these casinos that will be opened maybe in two or three years’ time, definitely all those funding percentages will definitely decrease so we need also some funding for our expansion, for our upgrading of equipment and facilities,” he said.

Naguiat specifically pointed out an estimated decrease of its contribution to the Board of Claims from P36 million to P1 million if all funding requests in Congress are approved.

The Board of Claims is an agency under the Department of Justice, which compensates victims of wrongful detention and prosecution.

Under its charter, Pagcor is mandated to remit one percent of its net cash income to the Board of Claims.

“Right now we’re only able to contribute about P36 million to Board of Claims. Kapag napasok ito lahat, definitely baba po itong claims (If all these funding bills are approved, our contribution to the Board of Claims will decrease). Ang estimate namin (Our estimate is that) it will go down to P1 million,” he said.

The Philippine Sports Commission, for one, is already complaining about a smaller share it gets from Pagcor, according to Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, chairman of the committee on sports.

Pimentel said that under its charter, the PSC is supposed to get a five percent share from the gross income of Pagcor.

“But it’s not literally five percent,” Pimentel said.