Research group IBON\nsaid the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) generate minimal income\nand employment for the country, contrary to government\u2019s claim that it is an\nessential sector and should be partially reopened. The group said that the\ninsistence on reopening POGOs appears to be yet another example of partiality\ntowards China. The public interest is better served by giving more attention to\npublic health measures for when the lockdown is lifted, stressed IBON.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The administration\nrecently announced that it will allow the partial reopening of POGOs while the lockdown\nis ongoing. It claims that POGOs are categorized as business process\noutsourcing (BPO) which is an essential sector due to its revenue and\nemployment generating capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON however\nquestioned the administration\u2019s defense of POGOs as an essential sector. It\ndoes not bring in much government income nor job opportunities for Filipinos,\nsaid the group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), it has collected only around Php6.4 billion from POGOs in 2019, which is\nnot even one-fourth of one percent (0.23%) of the Php2.8 trillion in total tax\nrevenues for the year. The government is not even able to collect the expected\nPhp50 billion in taxes from offshore gaming operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, POGO\nregulatory fees averaging only Php3.8 billion annually in the last five years\nwere a measly 1.5% of the annual average non-tax revenues over the same period.\nPhilippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation\u2019s (PAGCOR) collects these fees, and\nPOGOs only contributed 7.6% to its gross income of Php75.8 billion in 2019. The\nbulk or 58.1% of PAGCOR\u2019s earnings are from regulatory fees of licensed casinos\nand electronic gaming sites. Some 34.1% of PAGCOR\u2019s gross income is from its\nshare of tables and electronic gaming machines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
POGOs also avoided paying franchise taxes,\nadded the group. In a Senate hearing last March, the BIR said only 8 out of 11\nPOGOs pay the 5% Philippine franchise tax. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON also explained\nthat POGOs contributed little to the country\u2019s employment because they employ mostly\nChinese citizens. January 2020 data from PAGCOR show that more than half or\n57.3% of the 188,239 POGO employees are Chinese citizens and 25% from other\nnationalities; only 17.7% are Filipinos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
PAGCOR has also been\ntouting that POGOs had driven Php25 billion in real estate profits through\noffice space leasing. Its own data however reveal that POGOs are mainly leasing\noffice space in buildings owned by top Philippine oligarchs, noted IBON. One\nexample is PB Com Tower in Makati owned by Lucio Co. PB Com Tower is home to 31\nPOGOs and POGO service providers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, the\nYuchengco Tower in Makati is a leasing space for 16 POGO service providers. The\nYuchengco Tower is owned by RCBC Realty Corporation, a subsidiary of RCBC. It\ncould be recalled that RCBC was put into controversy in 2019 due to its ex-bank manager being found guilty of money\nlaundering in connection with the US$81 million cyber heist on Bangladesh\u2019s\ncentral bank. IBON found that in RCBC\u2019s May 2019 disclosure to the Securities\nand Exchange Commission (SEC), one of the banking corporation\u2019s independent\ndirectors from 2016 to present, Gabriel Claudio, is also serving as a director\nat PAGCOR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IBON said that if\ngovernment is really sincere in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, it should\nprioritize improving the country\u2019s testing capacity and isolation of COVID-19\ncases over reopening businesses such as POGOs. The group added that improving\nthe country\u2019s health system would have avoided a longer lockdown. Moreover,\nIBON said that if the government focused on productive sectors such as\nagriculture and manufacturing, the Philippine economy could jumpstart faster\nrather than depending on the piddling contribution of POGOs. ###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEWS<\/p>\n
Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs) generate minimal income and employment for the country, contrary to government\u2019s claim that it is an essential sector and should be partially reopened.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,14],"tags":[432,2199,347,116,2257,2232,2174],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9553"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9562,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9553\/revisions\/9562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}