Philippine lawmakers are once again looking at the potential risks and benefits of privatizing some assets of its state-run gaming regulator, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR).
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon wants the Department of Finance and PAGCOR to revisit the option of selling the regulator’s Casino Filipino properties along with some of its satellite casinos. “If we privatize our gaming industry and bid out through a fixed fee the privilege of operating PAGCOR, would PH300 billion (US$5.8 billion) annually in additional revenues be a conservative and fair estimate today?” Drilon asked.
“We could achieve that with no effort,” said DOF Secretary Carlos Dominguez.
According to Drilon, “We’re failing to tap a sweet source of revenue for the government, and not only that, this is something that can bring order and correct a lot that had gone wrong because of the structure.”
President Rodrigo Duterte first lobbied for the selloff of some PAGCOR casinos, saying the authority’s role as both operator and regulator was a conflict of interest that made it vulnerable to corruption.
In 2016, PAGCOR announced it would sell the 47 casinos it owns and operates, a process that was to have begun in 2018 with the sale of 17 casinos. But the plan was shelved when PAGCOR Chairwoman and CEO Andrea Domingo said the revenues were too important to sacrifice.
In other Philippine gaming news, the government has shut down what is said to be one of the country’s biggest Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) over unpaid taxes. The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR served the closure to Great Empire Gaming and Amusement Corp, based in Quezon City, according to the Philippine News Agency. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that the closure left more than 8,000 mostly Chinese workers out of a job.
And the tough-talking president also warned the POGO industry, which is overwhelmingly staffed by Chinese nationals, that their operations “should never serve as a haven for undocumented foreign workers or for the manufacture of and trafficking of illegal drugs.
“If you are a drug lord, or if I catch you importing or manufacturing drugs and you destroy my country in the process, I will kill you,” Duterte said.
