POGOs face new Senate investigation, repudiated by BPO industry

MANILA, Philippines – Senate minority leader Franklin Drilon said Saturday that he would move to resume the Blue Ribbon Committee investigation into Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGO) as more questions emerged about the reopening. of online gambling companies despite the national health emergency.

Drilon said, among other things, he wanted to point out, when sessions resume, the people behind POGO operations and “why we love them so much.”

Senate President Vicente Sotto III said he wanted the administration to explain the reason for resuming Pogo operations and how much the government earned from them to be considered an “essential” industry that could operate during Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) .

“If the executive department has a good reason, that is their decision. We have nothing to say unless it is discussed in the legislation [and] there is a senator or congressman who will present a bill that says that we should eliminate Pogos forever, “Sotto said in a radio interview.

Drilon said he “would raise the issue of resuming POGO operations, including the identities of the licenses granted” at committee hearings, which last focused on money laundering that allegedly involves emails carrying cash. linked to Pogos.

He questioned the classification of POGOs as business process outsourcing companies (BPOs), which were allowed to resume operations during the ECQ.

The claim that the Pogos were BPO was “insulting,” Drilon said, noting that if that were the case, they should not have been regulated by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor), the state regulator of games and casinos.

The pogos mainly cater to Chinese players in China, which prohibits gambling.

BPO rejection

The Philippine Information Technology and Business Process Association (Ibpap) on Saturday rejected any similarity between online gambling and the outsourcing business.

Rey Untal, Ibpap’s President and CEO, said that “as far as the IT-BPM (Information Technology Business Process Management) industry is concerned, Philippine offshore gaming operators, or Pogos, as they are commonly called, they cannot be considered as outsourcing of business processes. “

“While BPOs and Pogos share a strange similarity, which is their offshoring nature, POGOs do so primarily because they are not supposed to be able to practice their gambling or gambling functions on their respective shores,” it said in a statement.

Pagcor and Malacañang announced on Friday that the Pogos would be allowed under “strict conditions”, including setting a 30 percent limit on the number of staff working per shift and that they must have tested negative for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes severe respiratory disease COVID-19.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque defended the POGOs on Saturday, saying they were “a kind of BPO” that the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) had allowed to operate under the ECQ and the General Community Quarantine (GCQ ).

The IATF-EID, which did not act at Pagcor’s request in March for a work-from-home scheme for POGO, had not released any resolution specifically allowing for the resumption of Pogo operations.

Barbers: “confused”

The representative of Surigao del Norte, Robert Ace Barbers, an ally of President Rodrigo Duterte, was dismayed that the IATF-EID took a “confused” position on Pogos.

He said that under Category 4 of IATF-EID Resolution No. 30 on April 30, gambling and betting were prohibited in both ECQ and GCQ.

Barbers expressed concern that the IATF-EID was showing favoritism to the Pogo industry and its workers to the detriment of Filipinos who had been excluded from their workplaces due to the closure.

“If the government allows POGO workers to go back to work, either under ECQ or GCQ, then it should also allow millions of daily wage earners,” he said.

But Roque said that “there was no favoritism there.”

Equal protection clause

“By contrast, the equal protection clause states that everyone in a similar situation should be treated equally,” Roque said at the Laging Handa briefing on Saturday.

Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, who said he opposed Pogos for moral reasons, also previously said that giving the green light to the reopening of Pogo indicated favoritism for the gaming business.

Drilon wanted the identities of the licensed Pogos to be revealed to the public. “Why do we love them so much?” he asked in a radio interview. “It seems they are being favored and we are willing to risk everything so that we can operate Pogos.”

The deputy minority leader of the House of Representatives and the representative of Bayan Muna, Carlos Isagani Zárate, raised a similar problem.

“Are the political supporters of Pogos so strong that they can even bypass the COVID-19 pandemic regulations?” he said.

“Gambling is not a basic service and, in fact, it is an antisocial activity that corrupts the moral fiber of our country. So was there very strong pressure to reopen them that the IATF granted their request? Zarate asked.

Several lawmakers warned that the reopening of the Pogo companies could pose a health risk, as the country was still struggling against the spread of the contagion.

Senator Sonny Angara, a survivor of COVID-19, told the Inquirer on Friday that the Pogo workers’ dormitory rooms were the same as the impoverished residential areas of Singapore, where most COVID infections were reported- 19.

The difference is clear

The rationale for allowing the resumption of Pogo operations could blur the lines between online gaming and BPO companies.

But for Untal the differences are clear. BPOs operate in the country to use local talent, giving direct and indirect jobs to millions of Filipinos. The pogos, on the other hand, hire foreigners to a large extent, he said.

“BPOs come to the Philippines to take advantage of our human capital, that is, our strong English and technical skills, customer service orientation,” malakit “and our ability to adapt to foreign cultures,” he said.

“This, in turn, has directly benefited millions of Filipinos by providing them with better job opportunities over the years,” he added.

As of 2019, the IT-BPM industry has employed 1.3 million direct workers. That number would increase with indirect jobs created in related industries to support BPO operations.

In comparison, Pagcor data in March showed that the POGOs employed 120,976 workers, with almost 70,000 Chinese and just over 30,500 Filipinos.

The IT-BPM industry is considered the largest employer in the private sector, as it offers well-paid jobs to Filipinos so they don’t have to go to work abroad.

Although its revenue prospects had dwindled mainly because the Duterte administration wanted to streamline tax incentives, the industry still generated $ 26.3 billion in revenue for the government last year.

If the Pogos were like BPOs, why weren’t they allowed to operate from the first days of closing? Under current rules, POGOs are not formally considered as BPOs.

“It must be a duck”

Drilon noted that BPOs are licensed by the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) or the Investment Board (BOI), but the Pogos are licensed by Pagcor.

Since Pagcor oversees the POGOs, it is clear that they are gaming operations, he said.

“As they say, if the POGOs look like a duck, they swim like a duck, they squawk like a duck, it must be a duck,” Drilon said.

Secretary Ramón López of the Department of Commerce and Industry, who chairs both Peza and BOI, said that Pogos were online gaming companies.

He declined to respond when asked if he also considered them BPO.

“There are similarities to BPOs in terms of using IT and the online platform in their business models, not brick and mortar, without physical interaction with customers and clients. So they can impose the minimum standard of health protocol required, “added López.

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