Ten people, including the past and current heads of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR), have been charged with graft for allegedly illegally releasing a PHP75 million (US$1.32 million) bond owed to an e-sabong (online cockfighting) operator.
Local media outlet Philstar reports that current PAGCOR Chairman and CEO Alejandro Tengco, appointed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is a respondent in the case along with his predecessor, Andrea Domingo, the regulatory chief under former president Rodrigo Duterte. Others charged in the case include Tengco’s chief of staff Dianne Erica Jogno and former board members Gabriel Claudio, Carmen Pedrosa, Reynaldo Concordia and James Patrick Bondoc.
Joaquin Sy, chairman and chief financial officer of Kamura Highlands Gaming and Holdings Inc., initiated the case. He posted the bond early last year to secure an e-sabong license from PAGCOR, the country’s gaming regulator. In May 2023, Duterte banned the online bloodsport, and Sy requested a return of the bond. He claims it was issued to Jewel Castro, reportedly a Kamura associate, who cashed it.
“Government accounting procedures strictly require that the original copy of the receipts must be surrendered before the withdrawal of the bond is allowed,” Sy said in a statement. “The illegal release of the cash performance bond to Castro was made during the incumbency of Domingo and the old board sometime in September 2022.”
The charges include malversation of public funds, qualified theft and falsification of private and commercial documents before the ombudsman. Tengco and Jogno are also charged with obstruction of justice for “deliberate concealment of the crimes and unjustified refusal to respond to the letters of the complainant within the period prescribed.”
Last week, Tengco told local media, “While we find it strange that we are included in the alleged charges, we nevertheless will pursue our own investigation, determine what really happened and bring the perpetrators to justice if indeed there was any anomaly. We have launched an internal investigation and we are trying to recreate the sequence of events.”
Since e-sabong was outlawed, Tengco pointed out, “the people in the e-Sabong Licensing Department have been reassigned to other units, so now we are trying to retrace the supposed anomalous transaction.”
Tengco took office in August 2022. He added, “While this happened before we came to PAGCOR, the public can rest assured that we will get to the bottom of this, and that we will respond to the accusations against us in the proper venue once we receive a copy of the alleged charges from the ombudsman.”
Malversation of public funds of this level is punishable by life in prison.
