POGO blood money

As many people wonder what President Bongbong Marcos will be sharing in his third State of the Nation Address (SONA), it is interesting to note that different individuals and groups have started to openly express their discoveries or their “critical views” publicly. As I reviewed what has been put out, it is clear that “the natives are restless” – and unhappy.

A number of articles have been published about how PhilHealth and the DOH will see or have seen a huge part of their funds siphoned off and parked into the Maharlika Fund. A number of columnists in broadsheets and KOLs or key opinion leaders in social media have made more efforts to attract public attention to the administration’s mismanagement of funds, loans, etc.

The week after those articles came out, I received a two-page letter calling on all Filipinos and community leaders to write to the President and call for the end of all POGO operations in the Philippines and to order PAGCOR to cancel all licenses.

I investigated the source of the anti-POGO campaign: 1Sambayan, and a friend described it as a generic campaign and shared sentiment of different groups with different affiliations but all of them fed up with the not so merry-go-round POGO investigations amounting to nothing.

The group pushing for the stop to POGO apparently understands media campaigns as they even included a suggested draft that people could copy or simply sign and forward to the Office of the President:

An open letter to President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.

Dear President Marcos Jr.:

We respectfully recommend that the President direct the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) to cancel immediately the licenses to operate of all Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) that cater to the Chinese mainland market on the following grounds:

1. The Chinese embassy in Manila has declared that under Chinese law, “any form of gambling, including online gambling and overseas gambling by Chinese citizens, is illegal.” The Chinese embassy even appealed to the Philippine government to ban all POGOs that cater to the Chinese market. This is now public knowledge in the Philippines and all over the world. (Statement of the spokesperson of the Chinese embassy in the Philippines on June 14, 2024 published in the Chinese embassy website at embassy.gov.cn/eng/sgdt/202310/t20231011_11159146.htm)

2. PAGCOR’s Internet Gaming Regulations dated July 12, 2023 states: “Regulation 2. Licensing of Offshore Philippine Gaming Operators, Section 4. Prohibited Acts.

a. Xxx

b. Allowing the registered website to be accessed within Philippine territory or in territories where online gaming is prohibited.

It is the responsibility of the licensee to ensure that the targeting of any games to players based in any jurisdiction is so targeted in full compliance with the laws of that jurisdiction. Xxx.”

3. PAGCOR’s Offshore Regulatory Gaming Manual dated July 3, 2018 states: “Regulation 2. Licensing of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations Section 3. Prohibited Acts of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators

a. Xxx

b. The operator shall not allow its gaming website to be accessed within the territory of the Philippines or in territories where online gaming is prohibited;

c. Xxx.

Regulation 4. The Offshore Gaming License xxx

Section 2. Additional Documentary Requirements

a. Xxx

xxx

e. License from foreign jurisdiction where the feed will be streamed to, or license of the recipient operator abroad; and f. Xxx.”

In short, PAGCOR requires every POGO to operate only in a foreign country where gambling is allowed. Clearly, no POGO can operate legally in mainland China which bans all kinds of gambling. Thus, PAGCOR cannot, and should not, issue a license to any POGO operating in mainland China. Any such license is void ab initio under PAGCOR’s own rules.

4. As shown by recent developments, Chinese POGOs are mostly operated by criminal syndicates. They have their own jails, torture chambers and hospitals. They illegally possess firearms. They use fake documents. They do not pay taxes. They engage in sex trafficking. They bribe government officials. There is no legal, moral, economic or social justification to allow such POGOs to operate in the Philippines.

We, therefore, implore the President to direct PAGCOR to cancel immediately all licenses of POGOs that cater to the mainland Chinese market. This is allowed under Regulation 8, Section 1(h) of the Internet Gaming Regulations of PAGCOR dated July 12, 2023, which states: “In case the license has been granted and the misrepresentation or false information is later discovered, the license shall immediately be cancelled and a 10-year ban from holding a license under these regulations shall be imposed.”

We ask the Filipino nation to join us in this Open Letter to the President.

Signed, Cito Beltran

*      *      *

I affixed my name as an addition to the form letter to show that I strongly support the appeal to the President to put a stop to POGO. No amount of money, not even the billions that might be collected, is worth it, Mr. President.

It is “blood money” paid by the victims. The money collected, no matter how much of it can be used for the benefit of the Filipinos, is at the expense of Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipinos who are enslaved, prostituted, enlisted into criminal activities or robbed of retirement fund by scammers.

We cannot call out foreign employers for rape, physical abuse, mental torture, brutality, while collecting check payments from pimps, gangsters, scammers and criminal syndicates. If the Philippine government continues with this, they are no different from China by not recognizing international and local laws of other countries.

PAGCOR chairman Alejandro Tengco proposes to regulate and collect billions from POGO. My question to the chairman is: you and what army? The “whole-of-government approach” failed and lost control of POGO. Let us not lose more lives and our humanity for blood money!