Philippine Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon says the government’s gaming regulator should sell its 47 casinos to help fund the fight against Covid-19. The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PACGOR) owns 47 casinos under the Casino Filipino brand.
Drilon also said another state-owned asset, the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO), could easily be sold to top up government coffers.
“The government does not have to look far to raise additional revenues,” he said. “There are ‘low-hanging fruits’ the government can immediately tap to provide the much needed resources for our country to survive this pandemic.”
According to Inside Asian Gaming, the Department of Finance promised last year to revisit a 2016 proposal to privatize PAGCOR’s casinos critics have long been concerned about the potential for conflicts of interest in an entity that both regulates and operates gaming venues. The proposal also called for privatization of the Small-Town Lottery (STL).
But PAGCOR Chairman and CEO Andrea Domingo, with the support of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, told IAG in 2018 that sale of the brand was put on hold because it was making so much money for the government.
“They’re still profitable,” Domingo said, adding, that the gross gaming revenues (GGR) yielded by PAGCOR casinos “go directly to the government, 100 percent.” She said other integrated resorts contribute just 19.5 percent of GGR to the government; if PAGCOR sold the Casino Filipino brand, she said, it would take five years for a commercially owned IR of similar size and value to contribute the same amount.
