Topic: PH Senator pushes a Ban to POGOs and All Sort of Online Gambling... - page 7. (Read 2379 times)

Maybe at the time of the arrest, the police found other facts that were related to it so they concluded that is should be banned. We don't know for sure how their investigation at that case because they will not open that to public. We can only guess with our speculation because when a business is illegal, they can also related to the other illegal business such as human trafficking, murder, money laundering and even drug. The government treat gambling is the same as the other things especially when that is illegal in their country so that will not surprise if they banned online gambling and offline gambling to avoids the same things happen again. But that will not stop people to keep playing gambling and they can find a way to visit the casino.

How is online gambling and offline gaming responsible for these vices mentioned? The above societal problems highlighted have nothing to do with gambling in general. With or without gambling, it'll continue if government can not offer long lasting solution to tackle the issue. Banning gambling with the aim of reducing the crime is just a misplaced of priority.


No, I don't think and in fact it will not solve the problem but rather aggravate it. If government decides to ban gambling entirely instead of reviewing it regulation, two things will be involved. Firstly, the supposed revenue generation from gambling operators will seized and secondly, many people will lose their job who depend on gambling to survive.

Don't get me wrong, but I think it has been the hub already from many years. It could have been just magnified by the current administration because of so many issues like kidnapping fellow Chinese and then torturing them if the families from China can't repay the money that this syndicates have loan to their fellow Chinese.

Even before like online "sabong" or cockfighting has been the centered as well as there was investigations before. So it's really hard for a country like the Philippines to removed gambling for good. As many are making money, thru corruption and other bribes to local government officials or even cabinet secretaries.

That’s actually possible. POGO could have been great since it generates a significant amount of tax revenue for the country. Unfortunately, as PAGCOR (the agency regulating POGO) mentioned, their authority is limited to checking licenses, they don’t have the capacity to monitor what’s happening inside. Solutions could be found, but without the right government to implement them, banning may just become the last resort.

If it were properly regulated, it would be a big help to the country. But ever since the influx of Chinese workers, many have come in without working visas, reportedly due to paying off immigration officials, leading to an uncontrollable situation.

You're right, he's spent a lot of people's money for his travels and each of it would cost a lot. One thing that I have noticed when pogo was banned and became the hot issue is that no more text scams that randomly came by.

They did in the past administration but right now, they don't like it. This is the ugly thing about democracy in our country and every administration has their own policy. 
We always revert to zero and start from nothing every change of government leadership.

The FATF grey list has nothing to do with the reputation of the country in order to get a loan, you know which countries are there?
Croatia and Bulgaria, do you think anyone has some issue lending money to Croatia, an EU member?
This is about something completely else and by the way neither Malta nor Gibraltar are there! 


Who would you loan money to, Argentina or Venezuela who are not having issues with the FATF, or Vietnam or South Africa? Two are "clean" and have defaulted 21 times in history the others are murky but have defaulted only 3 times and one only because of a war!
When it comes to loans at country levels with billions of infrastructure projects nobody cares about some casino crisis that is microscopic in the sea of things.

His hands is not tied rather he is completely useless and just following the flow or trend of where he will benefit. So far, his administration is one of the worst administration, I vote for BBM but I’m already regretting my decision due to lack of his presence since he start his term. He focus on foreign economic ties while leaving the local economy still the same.

He is just spending PH resources on his travel without getting in return significantly benefits. POGO is really bad but they can do better to moderate it without involving illegal activities. The problem is PH government is corrupted while politicians is busy on their own agenda to get their fair share on the country wealth.

We can be a center for international gambling hub if the government will just regulate it properly without accepting brine to Chinese syndicate.

For those who dont know, Duterte is pro China. During President Rodrigo Duterte's term, many said that drug-related incidents decreased due to his harsh anti-drug campaign. However, alongside this there was an increase in POGO most of which are connected to China. This has been a frequently discussed issue, especially with reports of illegal activities and crimes linked to POGO.

Regarding Duterte's being pro China, it was evident in his foreign policy, where he sought to establish closer relations with China compared to before, despite issues related to the West Philippine Sea. (Ika nga sinasabi ng mga mababatas natin nabenta na ang Pilipinas sa China).

I think the Philippines doesn’t need to borrow money. The focus should be on fighting corruption since these corrupt politicians are the ones who benefited the money of the state. And with that said, we need a strong leader something I don’t see in the current administration. The war on drugs under Pres. Duterte was, in my opinion, one of the reasons why the number of addicts decreased. But now, the problem is growing again. I can say this because I live in a province where drug addiction is becoming more common. While the war on drugs may not have looked good due to the high number of deaths among addicts, if it was to protect innocent lives, then I believe it was justified.

Today, I heard on the news that the International Court (IC) might soon serve a warrant to arrest the former president. I fear this could lead to civil war because Duterte still has strong support, especially from the military, whom he doubled the salary for during his administration. It seems like we are heading in that direction, as the current administration appears determined to imprison the Dutertes, who they see as a political threat in the next election. They understand the people's support for the Dutertes and want to prevent any of them from running next time.

While Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had 31 million votes in 2022 to become president, I believe his win was heavily influenced by Sara Duterte, his running mate, who won the VP race with 32 million votes. Both secured their positions with a landslide victory. There are many speculations about what could happen, and supporters might just be waiting for a trigger that could set off that civil war.

Well, even with a ban, illegal casinos are likely to continue to operate except the authorities decides to go after them, and basides, what made the casinos illegal in the first place? Two reasons, first is, they aren't registered and secondly, unregistered casino are not allowed to operate, but they continue to operate, this is what makes such casinos illegal.

In a country where there is no ban, or official ban against the operations of unregistered casinos, lawfully or according to the law, we can't say or assume that such casinos are illegal because there is no official law banning them from operating, authorities can hold such casinos for not registering, but they can't be called or referred to as operating illegally.

As a citizen where all of this unfolds, I can't help but wonder that what's happening is all just the tip of the iceberg, It started with one report that resulted in the raid of the POGO building in one small peaceful town of Bamban Tarlac, where the mayor, who happens to be of Chinese descent, was found out to be one of the owners of the land where the POGO buildings are and the ones paying for the electric and water bills of the POGO operation.

This resulted in a Senate and Congress investigation that led to exposing Alice Guo as not really a Filipino, and she just faked all his credentials and attached him as a spy of the Chinese government.
This is really ugly; it exposes the Philippine system of documentation as very corrupt; any foreigner can fake his credentials by bribing government officials.
I thought things like this happened in a movie, but we are now in the middle of espionage by a powerful country that wants to conquer a vast sea in the Asian region.

They will also take that into consideration, if the Philippines, with the war on drugs of the previous administration and then now the POGO that the current administration inherit, the Philippines might not be in the good standing as far as other countries on any world organization as far as lending them money for reconstruction.

Also the political landscape in the Philippines is one of the things that investors are looking at. Although it is one of the best nation as far as BPO business is, but still if they have a bad image from gambling and drugs, it might be very difficult for the country to recover, thus, banning POGO is a good decision.

Maybe the reason why those people behind this business manage to facilatate inside our country, they play behind the law and manage to control those corrupt officials to make money inside the country, those corrupt individual don't bother to think about the benefits of many but they more on their own self benefits.

It affects the nation in terms of trust but corrupt officials don't care about that, as long as they can collect what the promise collection for them then it will continue.

Let see if every single pogo will be close or just for those who are being eyed and those that's not under the radar or have a blessing of another corrupt politicians will continue to do business.

Possible, but so far when I'm playing online, I haven't seen any Filipinos though, usually it's from countries like Latvia. So we really don't know if there are Filipinos working in from or from behind.


Of course, the current President hands are tied and he can't do anything but to ban POGO as it has not only highlighted locally, but from the whole world. And again, he doesn't want his country in the middle of all this gambling and AML or terrorism or money laundering. So it's really good to hear that the country of Philippines are going to ban this POGO for good.

We don't know exactly how they judge the situation, but here’s what's hapenning...

Banks are supervised by the central bank, like in the Philippines, where they are chaired by the governor of Central bank, with its members the the Commissioner of the Insurance Commission (IC) and the Chairperson of the SEC..  So, you see the cycle. If other countries have a similar setup, financial institutions generally dislike lending to countries that are hubs for scams and where money laundering is rampant.

From an individual perspective, if I were to borrow money from a bank, they would conduct a character investigation aside from assessing my capacity to pay. So, I need to pass both to get my loan application approved.

Lenders, specially those who lend enough money to finance huge projects in developing countries like Philippines usually want to know whether the conditions of the country are such which allow the nation to pay back, plus the accorded interest rates. There are lender out there which are cynical enough for them not to care whether there is much of an underground or illegal economy within the country which borrows, as long as they keep the terms of the contract intact.
Venezuela, my beloved country, is a good example of it. We are a poor developing country with oil and some gold as only solid colateral, there are still organizations (from the east side of the world) which are willing to lend us money (at higher interest rates than the west and their more stable countries).

So even if the government of Philippines continues to harbor gambling and money laundering, big lenders won't care, as long as they can profit off the country. It is sad, but it is a reality, lenders do not have moral compass.

I was about to say this too, it is always about the money any nothing else, the casinos aren't paying enough money to run their businesses it seems, because other countries are even boasting that casinos did a lot to their country's development, the U.S is one of them, Las Vegas is Raking in some good funds every month so it is obvious that no law can stop that business.

Governments will pretend that they are doing the best for their citizens, I bet that's what the Philippines Senator will be referring to right now, for the sake of the people, but it is all a cover up, better excuse than saying that casinos aren't ready to cough up enough money.

As for the few saying that this is an illegal gambling operation or something wrong with POGO on the inside, here is my question, is POGO the only casino operating in the Philippines? Whatever the problem that the government have with POGO should be on POGO only, this is why I don't believe this, I believe there is more to this story than we know, maybe almost all casinos in the country are running illegally?

I don't know, but is there a possibility that there are some Filipino people working on POGOs? If that's the case, then they're the ones that will be mostly affected because with POGOs getting banned, they will not have work anymore.

Our president already banned POGOs and for me, it's a good move knowing that we've seen how many of these POGOs are treating their people very badly. We've seen reports of people being tortured under these POGO hubs. As for online gambling in general, not all of them will be banned because there are still some online gambling casinos out there that are registered hence, they will continue their services. The only ones that will be banned are those illegal ones, but I doubt that all of these illegal online gambling casinos will be banned.

That would have a big effect on our country, as it might stop other countries from lending to us. They usually base their decision on a nation’s financial status and peace and order. So, if operations continue, it will tarnish our country’s image. And if we can’t borrow, there won’t be anything left for the corrupt politicians to pocket.

It's not the only reason though, if you will have to research, the Philippines, is in the grey area as far as (FATF Financial Action Task Force), which means we are being considered to be one of those countries that facilitates money laundering through gambling and so we have been under this watchful eyes of this financial watch dogs and for sure the current President Marcos wanted to this to erase.

We are one of those nations, together with Malta or Gibraltar which we know issues licenses to online gambling platform. Maybe believed, that online gambling is one avenue for criminals to launder money, and it could also include crimes like human trafficking, or even illegal drugs and uses this online platform to wash their money. Of course, the Philippines is making money from tax, but I haven't seen exact numbers so there is a dispute amongst Filipinos if it really benefited us or not.