House Minority Leader Benny Abante Jr. has slammed plans to allow Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) to operate in the country as it grapples with the Covid-19 outbreak, categorizing the move as “premature and unwise given our experience with this industry.”
“The reopening of POGOs, according to the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), is contingent upon the payment of back taxes to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and guarantees that all of their 120,000 employees have working visas,” said the legislator.
“POGOs show that they have little regard for the lives they threaten with their irresponsible behavior.”
“How can we rely on them to fulfill these conditions when there is abundant evidence that these POGO operators have no qualms about circumventing our laws?”
Abante pointed out that 44 Chinese nationals were recently arrested and detained after authorities raided an illegal POGO operation in Parañaque City, in direct violation of Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) guidelines that forbid the operations of nonessential businesses.
According to Abante, congressional hearings have likewise exposed numerous irregularities in POGO operations, such as revelations from the BIR that report that POGOs have incurred 27 billion pesos in tax liabilities that remain uncollected.
“The BIR even discovered that 4,000 POGO employees were using the same TIN (Tax Identification Number)! Allowing these POGOs to operate despite all these issues is akin to rewarding bad behavior,” lamented Abante.
“As I said before, by continuing to operate despite the ECQ, these POGOs show that they have little regard for the lives they threaten with their irresponsible behavior; they constitute a threat to the health of the public and should be treated as such,” stressed the solon.
The lawmaker appealed to the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases to reconsider their decisions, and said that POGOs cannot be considered BPO (business process outsourcing) companies and should not be considered an “essential industry.”
“I believe one of the first qualifications for any industry to be considered an ‘essential industry’ is whether it employs our countrymen or not,” said Abante.
“Bakit po natin uunahin ang pagbukas ng isang negosyo na dayuhan ang manggagawa, habang marami sa ating mga kababayan hindi makapagtrabaho dahil sa ECQ? This move sends all the wrong signals to our workers and our countrymen.”