Duterte: Online gambling may return if …

President Rodrigo Duterte. Pool Photo via AP File Photo

MANILA — Online gambling could return in the country, if certain conditions were met, President Duterte said on Wednesday.

“I will bring back online (gambling) provided taxes are correctly collected, and they are situated or placed in the districts where gambling is allowed, which means to say, not within the church distance and schools,” Duterte said in a media interview in Taytay, Rizal.

Duterte has railed against online gambling operations, and named one of its operators, businessman Roberto Ongpin, as an oligarch that he wants to destroy.

Following this, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation did not renew the license of Ongpin’s Philweb Corporation, which has been operating e-games.

Duterte said on Wednesday he was angry that online gambling had “sprouted everywhere.”

He did not like it that even children were playing in casinos, and there was no proper way to collect taxes from the games.

“I was angry because there are persons, oligarchs, who are getting the privileges, concessions, franchise and their only capital were their words,” he said.

“This has to stop. This has to stop. This is not their time,” he added.  SFM/rga