{"id":31447,"date":"2022-07-05T06:19:18","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T09:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=31447"},"modified":"2026-04-23T07:08:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:08:54","slug":"the-philippines-to-create-task-force-to-monitor-e-sabong-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/the-philippines-to-create-task-force-to-monitor-e-sabong-operations","title":{"rendered":"The Philippines to create task force to monitor e-sabong operations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Department of Information and Communications Technology will create a special task force to detect and dismantle e-sabong operations in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The Philippines.- More than two months since former Philippine President\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippines-president-changes-his-mind-and-orders-e-sabong-ban\" target=\"_blank\">Rodrigo Duterte banned e-sabong operations<\/a>\u00a0in the country, police continue to uncover online cockfighting operations.\u00a0The <strong>Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT)\u00a0<\/strong>has now announced the creation of a task force to monitor and coordinate enforcement action against them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said the department would intensify the campaign against websites that promote online cockfighting. In May, the\u00a0<strong>Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG)\u00a0<\/strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/authorities-in-the-philippines-ask-facebook-to-remove-e-sabong-pages\" target=\"_blank\">asked Facebook to block pages<\/a>\u00a0promoting online cockfights. A week ago, police in Manila arrested a man who was allegedly involved in e-sabong games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The rise and fall of e-sabong in The Philippines<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Back in December 2020, the House of Representatives in the Philippines approved a bill to tax online betting on sabong events held in legal cockpits and transmitted through streaming systems.\u00a0A few months later,\u00a0<strong>the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR)\u00a0<\/strong>announced that\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippines-pagcor-to-receive-revenue-from-licensed-e-sabong\" target=\"_blank\">two licensed e-sabong operators<\/a>\u00a0had started to operate in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The regulator had hoped to collect between PHP250m and PHP350m per month from the new vertical. However, in March when 23 Senators called for PAGCOR to suspend e-sabong operations after the disappearance of 31 people linked to the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At first,\u00a0President Duterte<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippines-president-e-sabong-will-continue\" target=\"_blank\"> defended e-sabong<\/a>\u00a0arguing that it was necessary for the economy because of a lack of funds as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, after receiving criticism for prioritising the economy over people, he changed his mind and ordered the\u00a0<strong>suspension of online cockfighting operations<\/strong> in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The announcement puts in doubt PAGCOR\u2019s revenue expectations. The regulator had achieved a monthly turnover of PHP650m through e-Sabong. From April 2021 to December 2021, the government earned about PHP3.69bn and from January to March 15, 2022, approximately PHP1.37bn was collected from the operations of seven licensees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation have been urged to\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/senators-call-for-investigation-of-e-sabong-employees-over-disappearances\" target=\"_blank\">investigate employees at Lucky 8 Star Quest<\/a> over the disappearances connected to the industry. According to a committee report, those who disappeared were last seen at arenas operated by the firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Information and Communications Technology will create a special task force to detect and dismantle e-sabong operations in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":26856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"The Philippine Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is establishing a special task force to detect and dismantle illegal e-sabong operations, following a nationwide ban. This initiative intensifies enforcement against unlicensed online cockfighting, a vertical that previously generated significant revenue for PAGCOR but was suspended due to public safety concerns and disappearances linked to the industry.","focusai_entities":"Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Rodrigo Duterte, Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), Facebook, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR), Philippine National Police, National Bureau of Investigation, Lucky 8 Star Quest, Ivan John Uy","focusai_location":"Philippines, Manila","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.8), affiliate_publisher (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"PAGCOR Revenue Impact","query":"What is the projected long-term impact on PAGCOR's GGR and NGR forecasts following the permanent cessation of e-sabong operations and the ongoing enforcement against illegal activities?"},{"label":"Regulatory Enforcement Efficacy","query":"What specific technological and inter-agency coordination strategies will the DICT task force employ to effectively dismantle sophisticated illegal e-sabong networks, and what metrics will define success?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[439,16333],"tags":[24019,229,23911],"class_list":["post-31447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-e-sabong","tag-gambling","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31452,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31447\/revisions\/31452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}