Palace: No special treatment for POGOs

MANILA, Philippines — The government is not giving special treatment to Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) when it allowed them to reopen – as business process outsourcing (BPO) firms – under a relaxed quarantine.

“The Inter-Agency Task Force on the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) has approved the re-opening of the BPOs…. The POGO is a form of BPO… there is no favoritism here,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said in the “Laging Handa” program on PTV-4 yesterday.

“On the contrary, the equal protection law provides that all those similarly situated must be treated alike, so POGO is a BPO, they should be allowed to re-open whether in areas under ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) or GCQ (general community quarantine),” he added.

But before they can reopen, POGOs should follow strict guidelines like settling their tax obligations and other fees with the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), he said.

They should also require their workers to undergo testing for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the costs of which they should shoulder, Roque said.

Furthermore, he said only 30 percent of POGO firms’ workforce would be allowed to work, and in shifts.

Some 10,000 POGO workers are set to return to their workstations in the coming days.

Returning POGOs are expected to shell out P400 million to P600 million as compensation for their employees displaced by the Luzon-wide lockdown that came into force on March 17.

Roque also claimed it was wrong to think that POGOs were fostering gambling in the Philippines.

“It is wrong to think that POGO is associated with casinos. There are no gambling activities happening in the Philippines since these cater (to clients) abroad.

“The computers and hardware are in the Philippines but all gaming transactions are done abroad,” Roque said.  “So, there are no casinos which were allowed to operate because POGOs are considered BPOs,” he added.

In allowing the re-opening of POGOs, officials cited the need for the government to have a steady source of funds for addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roque said it is Pagcor that should ensure strict implementation of health protocols to avoid COVID-19 contamination among POGO workers.

BPOs, he added, implement equal distribution of “on-site” and “work-from-home” employees. They also provide on-site housing for workers.

For information technology (IT) and business process management (BPM) firms, however, POGOs cannot be considered BPO firms.

“The Information Technology and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP) would like to have it clarified that as far as the IT-BPM industry is concerned, Philippine offshore gaming operators or POGOs, as they are commonly called, cannot be considered BPO,” it said in a  statement.

IBPAP said BPO firms operating in the country are registered with either the Philippine Economic Zone Authority or the Board of Investments, which are both investment promotion agencies.

POGOs, on the other hand, are registered with Pagcor.