Malacañang should approve the request of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. to return to Bangladesh its earnings from the cyber heist loot gambled away in state-regulated casinos, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said on Wednesday.
During the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing on the electronic theft of $81 million of Bangladesh funds, Pagcor said it was willing to return any income derived from stolen money played in casino tables, provided it got the clearance from the Office of the President.
Asked by Recto during the hearing on Pagcor’s share from “winnings and taxes,” its chief operating officer and president Eugene Manalastas said they get gross gaming revenue of 15 percent as a regulator.
Pressed by Recto if Pagcor is “thinking about returning money which came from Bangladesh,” Manalastas said “since we are under the Office of the President, we will seek a directive from them if we can return the amount.”
After hackers wired the funds in tranches to the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. a huge chunk was funneled to casinos where it was later converted into chips for betting in gaming tables.
At present, Pagcor could not determine how much it earned from the laundered chips as earnings from a particular casino “are intermingled,” Manalastas said in reply to Recto’s query.
Pagcor, however, has given casinos 10 days to submit the amount. A casino representative told senators that they will have to look into players’ records to determine the amount.
“Specifically, you will have to look into the accounts of Gao Shuhua,” Recto said, referring to the Chinese national who got the Bangladesh money and spent part of it in casinos.
Representatives of Pagcor-supervised casinos said they’ve been looking at records for weeks in order “to determine which portion of that gross gaming revenue actually pertains to the Gao playing account.”
Questioned by Recto on the “ballpark figure” of Pagcor’s share from one junket operator involved in the mess for the month of February when the heist happened, Manalastas said “approximately P48 million.”
“So, what is the disposition of Pagcor here?” Recto said.
“We are under the Office of the President, a directive from the President will allow us to return the amount,” Manalastas said.
Recto said Pagcor’s actual earnings could be way lower than the ballpark figure of P48 million. “But even at P48 million, it is still a drop in the bucket of what it earned last year.”
According to Pagcor’s financial statement posted on its website, the government’s third largest revenue earner raked in P47.21 billion in 2015, up by 18 percent from 2014’s gross take of 39.99 billion.
Its gaming income last year, which accounts for more than 90 percent of its annual revenues, grew 45 percent to P43.38 billion from P29.93 billion a year ago.
Pagcor’s earnings from other related services include regulatory fees that it collects from licensed casinos and income share from other gaming activities such as e-games, commercial bingo and poker.