{"id":34835,"date":"2022-10-26T17:45:23","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T20:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=34835"},"modified":"2026-04-23T03:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T06:33:09","slug":"half-of-the-senate-could-be-in-favour-of-banning-pogos-in-the-philippines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/half-of-the-senate-could-be-in-favour-of-banning-pogos-in-the-philippines","title":{"rendered":"Half of the Senate could be in favour of banning POGOs in the Philippines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Senator Risa Hontiveros said half of the 24-member Senate is &#8220;possibly&#8221; in favour of an end to Philippine offshore gaming operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Philippines.- The possibility that POGOs may be banned in the Philippines is becoming more real. Yesterday (October 26), Senator Risa Hontiveros told Abs-Cbn that half of the senate could vote in favour of the&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/senate-leader-presents-bill-to-ban-online-gambling-in-the-philippines\" target=\"_blank\">bill to ban<\/a>&nbsp;the businesses. She added that irrespective of any ban, POGOs must be mandated to settle their taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF), the Makati Business Club (MBC), and the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP)&nbsp;have <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/bill-to-ban-pogos-gains-support-from-philippine-business-groups\" target=\"_blank\">issued a joint statement<\/a>&nbsp;arguing that POGOs have a high social cost and damage the country\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, senator<strong>&nbsp;Sherwin Gatchalian<\/strong>&nbsp;has suggested that the Philippines could&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippine-senator-wants-bpos-to-replace-pogos\" target=\"_blank\">mitigate the impact of a ban on online gaming<\/a>&nbsp;by growing the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.&nbsp; Gatchalian noted that POGOs contribute&nbsp;<strong>PHP34.68bn<\/strong>&nbsp;a year to the country or 1 per cent of GDP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He said that while this contribution could be considered significant,&nbsp;<strong>the impact of a ban could be mitigated by attracting BPO companies<\/strong>, which could take up office space left by gaming operators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senator Risa Hontiveros said half of the 24-member Senate is &#8220;possibly&#8221; in favour of an end to Philippine offshore gaming operators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Philippine Senator Risa Hontiveros indicates that half of the Senate may favor a ban on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), citing high social costs and reputational damage. While POGOs contribute PHP34.68bn annually, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian suggests mitigating a ban's economic impact by expanding the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry to absorb displaced office space and economic activity.","focusai_entities":"Risa Hontiveros, Abs-Cbn, Foundation for Economic Freedom (FEF), Makati Business Club (MBC), Management Association of the Philippines (MAP), Sherwin Gatchalian","focusai_location":"Philippines, Makati","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.8), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"POGO Ban Timeline?","query":"What is the projected timeline for a definitive legislative decision on the POGO ban, and what are the key political hurdles remaining for its enactment or rejection?"},{"label":"Economic Mitigation Strategy?","query":"How would the Philippine government effectively mitigate the economic impact of a POGO ban, specifically regarding the PHP34.68bn annual contribution and potential job displacement, beyond BPO expansion?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,158,16333],"tags":[15789],"class_list":["post-34835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legislation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-pogos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34835","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=34835"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34874,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34835\/revisions\/34874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}