A Philippine senator, who has long criticized the fact that overseas online game operators are based in the Philippines, cited figures and reiterated the notion that the sector’s overall contribution to the public finances is not “substantial.”
“Pogo has been lobbying to give the impression that it generates significant revenue, but that’s not the case,” Sherwin Gachalian (file photo), chairman of the Senate’s Ways and Means Committee, which oversees public revenue generation issues, said in an update on its website on Thursday, referring to the Philippine offshore gaming operator
On July 22, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the leader of the Philippines, said that POGOs, now known as Internet Gaming License (IGL), will have to close their operations in the Philippines by the end of the year.
Senator Gatchalian said offshore online operators have transferred 10.32 billion PHP ($177.1 million) to the government based on actual revenue collections reported by the Bureau of Revenue (BIR) in 2023.
He said the Philippines’ gambling regulator, the Philippine Gaming and Play Company (Pagcor), by contrast, generated 5.17 billion PHP in 2023 from the sector.
The tax bureau’s collection in the proclamation this year was expected to reach 16.8 billion PHP, while Pagco was expected to earn 5.95 billion PHP this year, according to calculations of the average annual growth rate of the overseas online sector.
At a Senate hearing in late July, Paizico chairman Alejandro Tengko said the Philippine government was losing about 23 billion PHP a year from licensing fees and taxes on overseas operators. He added that 43 licenses are now in operation.
In a recent written response to GGRAsia, Pagcor Vice President of External Communications Catalino Alano said, “The decision to ban PGO financially will have minimal impact on the Philippine gaming industry because the sector accounts for less than 5% of total gaming revenue.”
Nevertheless, in a recent interview with ABS-CBN News, Mr Tengko suggested that up to 14 business-to-business (B2B) service companies should be spared the country’s ban on online offshore gaming businesses.
They are licensed as Business Processing Outsourcing Entities (BPOs), and while they serve overseas online operators, they themselves do not provide enterprise-to-consumer services. He said such BPOs have employed more than 9,000 Filipinos.
Data obtained from Pagco by the country’s Ministry of Labor and Employment showed 25,064 local workers were employed as a whole in the offshore online sector, Senator Gachalian posted on his website on Thursday.
Mr Gachalian posted that the Senate’s Roads and Means Committee is pushing related legislation to ensure the ban on the proclamation continues beyond President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s scheduled term until June 2028.
BY: 에볼루션 바카라사이트