Agencies present conflicting data on POGOs

MANILA, Philippines — The congressional investigation on the Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGO) industry hit a blank wall early on as government agencies presented conflicting data at a hearing earlier this week.

The inquiry, aimed at coming up with better regulations on POGOs, failed to establish the actual number of foreign workers in the industry, which was necessary to determine how much unpaid taxes the government is actually losing and was supposed to be the starting point for lawmakers to determine the reforms and measures needed.

The House committee on games and amusements called out agencies over the discrepancies and told them to shape up and get their acts together in order to properly regulate the industry.

ACT-CIS party-list Rep. Eric Go Yap, chair of the panel, specifically slammed the lack of coordination between the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and Bureau of Immigration (BI) as well as the insufficient efforts of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to run after delinquent POGOs.

The lawmaker expressed dismay over the discrepancies in the figures of Pagcor, DOLE and BI on the actual number of workers in the multibillion-peso industry, which is needed for regulatory measures.

“To a certain extent, such discrepancies are understandable because they have different sources of their figures. Pagcor gets it from the figures declared by licensees; BI has its figures based on those issued with working visa; while DOLE is getting data from their list of those issued with alien employment permit. But shouldn’t these agencies coordinate with one another? That’s why we have Task Force POGO where they should consolidate their data, double check and triple check. How can we move forward when we don’t even know the exact number of POGO workers?” Yap stressed.

Dasmariñas, Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., vice chair or the panel, shared this opinion.

“The three government agencies who are supposed to have the same numbers actually have different figures. I would just request these three government agencies to justify their figures and to show what went wrong. Because, theoretically, you must have the same numbers,” he lamented.

During the hearing, Pagcor reported 92,897 foreign POGO workers, the BI listed only 44,768 workers as of Oct.31 while the DOLE recorded 71,532 workers.

Aside from this issue, Yap also called out the BIR after it was found that only 10 out of 62 legitimate POGO firms are paying taxes. – With Jess Diaz