Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Wednesday urged the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to come up with a plan to assist Filipino workers to be affected by the closure of Philippine Overseas Gaming Operators (POGOs) should they get banned in the country.
An estimated 22,000 Filipinos are currently employed by POGOs in the country.
Gatchalian said while the agency is already looking at how it can assist workers who might lose their jobs, he emphasized there is a need to come up with a meaningful and detailed program for them including the retooling and upskilling of their skills.
“While we do not expect an abrupt displacement of POGO workers, it is important that immediate assistance or intervention is readily available for these Filipino workers to find replacement jobs as soon as possible,” Gatchalian said.
For instance, the DOLE could provide a mechanism that would directly engage displaced POGO workers with other industries such as the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector, the senator said.
Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla on Wednesday meanwhile said six Chinese nationals, who worked with POGOs whose licenses have been canceled, flew to Wuhan, China yesterday afternoon, on “self-deportation.”
Remulla said the departure of the six Chinese nationals will be the first deportations since the government started its crackdown on those working with illegally operated POGOs. The DOJ chief also said that “there are 400 more foreigners in custody who are being scheduled for deportation.”
On POGOs, Gatchalian said that the local BPO industry, which has been existing in the country for the past 20 years, currently employs around 1.5 million Filipinos and posts an annual growth rate of 8%.
The industry is expected to post a higher growth of 10% in the next 5 to 10 years, which means more jobs for Filipinos.
On the other hand, the number of accredited service providers of licensed POGOs has gone down from 2019 to 2022. There were 231 accredited service providers of POGOs in 2019 and 123 to date, based on data coming from the Philippine Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR).
“It can be gleaned from available data that BPO is a growing industry, and we can encourage our people to pursue employment in this industry. By comparison, the POGO industry is declining even after we have put in place a tax regime that legalized their operations. It is obvious the POGO industry is not worth pursuing as a sustainable industry in terms of providing employment to our people,” Gatchalian said.
The senator explained that the majority of those currently employed by POGOs are skilled workers such as those working in customer relations, strategic support providers, IT support providers, and gaming software platform providers, among others.
