The Philippines will lift mandatory mask-wearing in public and indoor spaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The Philippines.- Authorities in The Philippines have decided to end the mandatory use of face masks in public spaces<\/strong> to move in line with Southeast Asian neighbours that have already lifted the measure. No date has yet been specified for when the requirement will be lifted, but President Ferdinand Marcos Jr <\/strong>is expected to issue an executive order soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Christina Frasco<\/strong>, the Philippines’ tourism secretary, indoor mask-wearing will become voluntary, with a few exceptions. She said it was hoped the move would tourism to help revitalise an economy heavily damaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Philippines lifted the majority of Covid-19 restrictions<\/a> back in March, which helped casino revenue<\/a>. The Philippines Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR)<\/strong> benefitted from the easing of Covid-19 countermeasures, reporting a net income of PHP2.16bn (US$38.8m)<\/strong> in the first half of the year, up 2,600 per cent when compared to last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Financial Action Task Force (FATF)<\/strong>, the Paris-based inter-governmental agency that monitors controls on anti-money laundering and terrorist financing, has decided to keep the Philippines<\/strong> on its \u201cgrey list\u201d of untrustworthy jurisdictions. The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) <\/strong>issued a statement saying it is working to get the country off the list<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It said: \u201cguidelines are in place to examine and enforce AML\/CFT controls such as a monitoring system to address the risks associated with casino junkets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The FATF mentioned in its recent review summary that the Philippines needs to improve and simplify access to beneficial ownership information <\/strong>by law enforcement and take steps to ensure such information is accurate and up-to-date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Philippines will lift mandatory mask-wearing in public and indoor spaces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":17179,"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 Philippines is set to lift mandatory mask-wearing, aiming to further boost tourism and economic recovery, following previous eased restrictions that significantly increased PAGCOR's H1 net income. Concurrently, the nation remains on the FATF grey list, with the AMLC actively addressing concerns regarding casino junkets and beneficial ownership information to enhance AML\/CFT controls.","focusai_entities":"Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Christina Frasco, Philippines Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR), AML Council (AMLC), Financial Action Task Force (FATF)","focusai_location":"Philippines","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.95), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"FATF Grey List Impact","query":"What specific operational and capital market implications does the Philippines' continued FATF grey list status, particularly concerning casino junkets and beneficial ownership, pose for iGaming operators and investors?"},{"label":"Economic Recovery & GGR","query":"How might the full lifting of mask mandates further accelerate GGR growth for licensed casino operators in the Philippines, and what are the projected timelines for a return to pre-pandemic revenue levels?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16333],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-south-east-asia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34795","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=34795"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34815,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34795\/revisions\/34815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}AML Council still working to get The Philippines off FATF grey list<\/h2>\n\n\n\n