Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Amenah Pangandaman has joined other economic managers in supporting calls to ban Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) in the country.
Quoted by reports, Pangandaman said the country “does not need” POGOs.
Pangandaman is the latest Cabinet member who is going against the operations of offshore gambling companies in the Philippines.
Earlier, Department of Finance Secretary Ralph Rector and Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan expressed disapproval of POGOs.
“For the record, I don’t think we need them,” Pangandaman told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Malacañang. “We gave our recommendation already, a joint recommendation from the economic managers and I hope that they will consider.”.
POGOs bring in between P40 billion and P50 billion in revenues, Pangandaman said, adding that the amount is “small.”
“That [amount] can be done through efficiency and our revenue generation,” she said.
“The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the BOC (Bureau of Customs), they are also digitalizing. We put up a lot of funding for the past few years and the next budget para sa digitalization lang,” she said.
The Department of Finance (DOF) earlier said that the Philippines is losing more than P99 billion annually due to POGO operations.
“We have for instance ‹yung foregone investment due to crime. We also have foregone revenues from tourism basically because of that negative picture of having POGO activities,” DOF Assistant Secretary Adrian Castro told senators earlier this month.
“Although we are foregoing tax revenues if ever there will be a ban on POGO, but that will be compensated if there will be more investment that will be coming in,” he added.
Aside from economic managers, lawmakers have also called on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to ban offshore gambling operations in the Philippines, especially after congressional investigations showed illegal activities — like torture, illegal detention and unregulated gambling — proliferating in POGO hubs in different provinces.
While the executive debates its pros and cons, several local governments have unilaterally banned POGO activities within their borders.
The Batangas City Council was the latest among them when it went ahead and passed a resolution prohibiting all POGOs amid growing security concerns around such operations.
In an interview on Tuesday, Councilor Nestor Dimacuha, chairman of the Committee on Laws and Rules and author of the resolution, said the supposed economic benefit of POGOs in terms of job creation, property sector earnings, and revenues for government are far outweighed by their social cost.
He said POGOs have been repeatedly linked to crime syndicates engaged in human trafficking, kidnapping, robbery-extortion, money laundering, online scams, and espionage.
POGO operations were earlier banned in Valenzuela City and the entire province of Bulacan, among other jurisdictions.
