📷Sen. Pia Cayetano
In September 2021, Sen. Pia Cayetano touted the enactment of Republic Act No. 11580 as a “major win” for the Philippines as it would generate billions of pesos, mainly from the Chinese who patronize Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs), and zero from Filipinos who are not supposed to indulge in gambling via cyberspace.
The good senator, a lawyer and champion of bicycle enthusiasts, not all of them believing in Ariel Ureta’s quip “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, bisikleta ang kailangan,” crafted, defended and delivered RA 11590, also known as POGO Tax Law, to Malacanang as a major contributor to the country’s coffers to beef up public services. “For years, many of these POGOS have been operating without paying the proper taxes. By virtue of this law that I sponsored and defended, they will now be taxed,” said Cayetano, who chaired the Senate Ways and Means Committee and convinced her colleagues to approve the bill.
“POGOS are offshore gaming operators. That means only foreigners abroad may gamble in POGOs. So, the taxes do not come from Filipinos, or even foreigners residing in the country,” she explained. “I’d rather tax the POGOs than see a proliferation of gambling in the country, which sadly seems to be the direction that our colleagues in the House are taking with the recent passage of a bill allowing online gambling,” she emphasized. In short, the Fil-American lawmaker is painting RA11590 as some manna from heaven while castigating the House of Representatives for passing a measure allowing online gambling. Taxing Chinese suckers is preferable than allowing Pinoys to wager online. What is sauce for the gander is poison for the goose?
To further embellish the law that she had sponsored, Pia Cayetano said that 60% of the revenues generated by RA 11590 will be allocated for the following purposes: 60% for the implementation of the Universal Health Care Act; 20% for the Health Facilities Enhancement Fund, and; 20% for the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), provided that the specific SDG targets are determined by the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA.) Cocksure about the desirability of the law that even the People’s Republic of China didn’t like, Cayetano insisted that POGO revenues would boost much-needed health programs amid the pandemic and buttress the attainment of the SDGs that the United Nations had formulated.
Citing the estimates of the Department of Finance (DOF), Cayetano said RA 11590 was projected to generate P22.9 billion in 2022 through the 5% gaming tax imposed on the gross gaming revenues of POGO licensees. Aside from this, the government was projected to earn P9.2 billion in 2022 from the 25% final withholding tax imposed on foreign POGO employees. All told, she announced, RA 11590 would generate P32.1 billion in 2022. Of course, the senators thought of the measure in purely mechanical terms, projecting huge earnings for a government notorious and assuming that the angels from China who would be employed by POGOs would abide by all Philippine laws and act in a civilized manner in their POGO republics. Naturally, the likes of Albay Rep. Joey Salceda welcomed the new law, concerned as he always was with finding whatever else could be taxed, adding more taxes to a burdened citizenry reeling from tax shortfalls and tax laws that are better known for the breach than the compliance.
Perhaps it is time for Sen. Pia Cayetano, Rep. Joey Salceda, Pagcor chief Al Tengco and others who comprised the POGO choir to admit their responsibility for the many crimes committed in POGO hubs, as well as the flood of bogus birth certificates that transformed Han Chinese into instant Filipinos, thanks to the P300,000 per copy of the cherished bogus certificates in the Davao Region, the hundreds of thousands of pesos that went into the acquisition of each visas and the establishment of Chinese enclaves where extensions of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security operated. “Nasilaw sa kita,” as one wag said, as the sponsors of RA 11590 did not meticulously craft a law that monitored the POGOs, which sneaked into the country in 2003, the height of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s power. In September 2016, Pagcor issued operational guidelines for POGOs, paving the way for legitimizing their existence in the Philippines.
Apparently, Cayetano loved POGOs so much when government reported that 118,239 people were employed by POGOs and they delivered P8.02-billion in revenues to Pagcor. By 2019, the Philippine National Police (PNP) was appalled by the rash of crimes in POGOs. By May 2024, 2,320 Filipinos were victimized by POGO hoodlums, representing 40% of the total number of victims, as well as 1,945 Chinese nationals, or 34%, indicating that 26% of the entire number of victims were aliens. Since kidnappings, murders, and scams were perpetrated in these POGOs, the public was naturally alarmed. Now that POGOs have been banned, operators have gone underground, sinking deeper into every nook and cranny of the country where electricity and internet service are available.
There was no truth to Cayetano’s claim that POGOs only catered to the Chinese but she should explain why 2,320 of her compatriots were victimized by Chinese fraudsters. Lawmen said that POGOs were experts in digital fraud, and from their terminals, more than 100,000 Filipinos were scammed in 2024 alone. From a high of 298 POGOs in 2019, the number has dwindled to only 10 by Dec. 2024. Nonetheless, authorities could only disclose that of the 33,000 foreigners employed by POGOs, 22,000 had left. This doesn’t explain where the other aliens among the 118,239 people employed by POGOs went. Many of them might have moonlighted in the shabu trade or joined local extensions of triad gangs who are armed to the teeth, or developed advanced versions of pig slaughter operations and even crypto scams. For her failure to make RA 11590 function seamlessly and improve the revenues for the Universal Health Care Act, Health Facilities Enhancement Fund, and the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the verdict is clear: Voters, beware of this Marcos Jr. senatorial candidate!
