{"id":777002310,"date":"2023-02-10T13:38:36","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T16:38:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777002310"},"modified":"2026-04-23T00:43:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:43:58","slug":"bsp-confirms-pogo-auditor-submitted-invalid-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/bsp-confirms-pogo-auditor-submitted-invalid-documents","title":{"rendered":"BSP confirms POGO auditor submitted invalid documents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has confirmed that the auditor does not operate in the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Philippines.- Senator Sherwin Gatchalian<\/strong> says he has received confirmation that the auditor hired by PAGOR to audit POGOs submitted invalid documents. He says a letter from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)<\/strong> governor Felipe Medalla<\/strong> quotes Soleil Capitale CEO Raj Astavakra as stating that Global ComRCI’s affiliate bank is based abroad and does not operate in the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The legitimacy of Global ComRCI<\/a>, a third-party auditor contracted by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR) in 2017 to audit the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators <\/strong>(POGOs), came into question after a January hearing by the Committee on Ways and Means, which was chaired by Gatchalian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the hearing, PAGCOR<\/a> presented a bank guarantee allegedly issued by Soleil in favour of Global ComRCI for PHP1.3bn (US$25m). However, the BSP letter points out discrepancies in the bank certification, including the logo used in the document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gatchalian said it was clear that Global ComRCI had submitted a false bank certificate to PAGCOR. He questioned the legitimacy of the contract and the credibility of Global ComRCI to conduct a third-party audit of POGO gaming revenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 1, the regulator issued a statement saying: \u201c[PAGCOR would] like to reiterate that since the assumption of its new management in August 2022, all contracts \u2013 including that of Global ComRCI \u2013 were put under review last September 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShould PAGCOR be able to prove that the documents submitted were spurious, it will immediately take legal action and cancel the contract of its third-party auditor, if found warranted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gatchalian<\/strong> has previously accused the regulator of having little knowledge of POGO\u2019s businesses<\/a>. Speaking in favour of banning POGOs, he has said that they contribute PHP34.68bn<\/strong> a year to the country \u2013 1 per cent of GDP \u2013 and that losing this could be mitigated by attracting BPO companies, which could take up office space left by gaming operators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has confirmed that the auditor does not operate in the Philippines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":17473,"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 Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has confirmed that Global ComRCI, a third-party auditor for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) contracted by PAGCOR, submitted invalid bank documents. Senator Sherwin Gatchalian highlighted discrepancies, leading PAGCOR to review the contract and consider legal action. This development intensifies the debate around POGO legitimacy and potential market exit.","focusai_entities":"Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, PAGCOR (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp), Soleil Capitale, Raj Astavakra, Global ComRCI, Committee on Ways and Means","focusai_location":"Philippines","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), affiliate_publisher (0.7), marketing_crm (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.8), investor_analyst (0.95), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Audit Integrity Impact","query":"What are the retrospective implications for POGO GGR and NGR reporting, and potential tax liabilities, given the alleged fraudulent documentation submitted by Global ComRCI?"},{"label":"PAGCOR Due Diligence","query":"What specific governance failures within PAGCOR allowed a third-party auditor with allegedly invalid credentials to secure and maintain a contract for POGO revenue assurance since 2017?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[154,158,16333],"tags":[23911,405,15789],"class_list":["post-777002310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legislation-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-pagcor","tag-pogos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777002310","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=777002310"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777002310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777002330,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777002310\/revisions\/777002330"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777002310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777002310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777002310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}