MANILA, Philippines — A number of websites and social media pages illegally operating e-sabong operations have been referred to the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation for their endorsement to the Department of Information and Communications Technology and Facebook for immediate deletion, the Philippine National Police disclosed Monday.
Per a statement sent to reporters, Police Brig. Gen. Robert Rodriguez, director of the PNP Anti-Cybercrime Group already submitted a Special Report to the office of DILG Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya on the investigation conducted by PNP-ACG on websites and other social media platforms being used by illegal operators of E-sabong.
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“Administrators and Operators of e-sabong take advantage of a crowd of faceless anonymities to continue to operate online sabong despite the President’s pronouncement for its immediate stoppage,” Rodriguez said.
According to Police Col. Bernard Yang, Deputy Director for Operations, there are 12 websites and 8 Facebook pages which were monitored to still be actively engaged in the operation of online sabong.
“Out of the 12 websites monitored, only two were registered in the Philippines while the rest are located offshore indicative that the administrators are located in other countries but are operating in the Philippines," Yang said.
At a press briefing Monday morning, Police Lt. Gen. Vicente Danao, officer-in-charge of the PNP said that police leadership was also directed to keep watch for police officers illegally engaging in online gambling as he issued a stern warning to officers who might be caught.
"There are still some, just a few, who are hardheaded, although these are unvalidated reports. You will reap what you [sow,] I'm telling you," he said, echoing the leadership's narrative that most dirty cops were just isolated incidents.
Asked for more details on the suspected personnel, he said they were mostly "officers and Non-Commissioned Officers."
Per data from the National Capital Region Police Officer, a total of 123 operations conducted from May 1–15 against illegal gambling led to the arrest of 370 individuals and confiscation of 107,455 gambling materials and paraphernalia.
To recall, Pagcor e-gaming licensing and regulation vice president Jose Tria said earlier that they monitored a number of online sabong websites including pinassabong.live, pclive1.com, sabong-express.net, phbetting.live, goperya.com, phbet44.bet, phbet.bet and phbetr.bet.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier this month said that the revenue collected by the government from e-sabong operations was not worth what he said was the "social damage" caused by these activities.