{"id":777003956,"date":"2023-04-03T13:11:51","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T16:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=777003956"},"modified":"2026-04-22T23:10:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T02:10:25","slug":"philippines-senator-calls-for-charges-over-pogos-auditor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippines-senator-calls-for-charges-over-pogos-auditor","title":{"rendered":"Philippines senator calls for charges over POGOs auditor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Senator Gatchalian has urged PAGCOR to file charges against the officials who hired Global ComRCI as a third-party auditor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>The Philippines.- Senator&nbsp;<strong>Sherwin T. Gatchalian&nbsp;<\/strong>has called on the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR) to hold officials accountable for commissioning an unqualified third-party to audit Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gatchalian, who chairs the Senate ways and means committee, revealed in a panel investigation that Global ComRCI,&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/bsp-confirms-pogo-auditor-submitted-invalid-documents\" target=\"_blank\">submitted a false bank guarantee<\/a>&nbsp;from a financial institution that was unauthorised by the Philippine central bank. He said the government officials responsible should be charged to ensure accountability and help prevent future irregularities in government contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On March 9, PAGCOR decided to&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/pagcor-cancels-contract-with-pogo-auditor\" target=\"_blank\">terminate its consultancy contract<\/a>&nbsp;with<strong>&nbsp;Global ComRCI&nbsp;<\/strong>citing \u201cunlawful acts\u201d. It said it had issued the notice to terminate the contract after \u201ccareful investigation\u201d and would <strong>explore all legal remedies <\/strong>to recoup its partial payment to Global ComRCI, which is worth over PHP800m (US$16.5m). It is also looking to file administrative, civil and criminal charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A week ago, Gatchalian recommended&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/philippine-senator-urges-government-not-to-lose-time-in-banning-pogos\" target=\"_blank\">the shutdown of POGOs<\/a>&nbsp;<strong>within three months<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>See also:&nbsp;<\/strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/survey-shows-58-of-filipinos-believe-pogos-are-harmful\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Survey shows 58% of Filipinos believe POGOs are harmful<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senator Gatchalian has urged PAGCOR to file charges against the officials who hired Global ComRCI as a third-party auditor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":21187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Senator Gatchalian has urged PAGCOR to file charges against officials responsible for commissioning Global ComRCI, an unqualified third-party auditor for POGOs, after it submitted a false bank guarantee. PAGCOR has terminated its PHP800m contract with Global ComRCI and is pursuing legal remedies, while Gatchalian also recommended a complete shutdown of POGOs within three months.","focusai_entities":"Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp (PAGCOR), Global ComRCI, Philippine central bank, Senate ways and means committee","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), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Audit Failure Impact","query":"What are the broader implications for PAGCOR's governance framework and its oversight of third-party B2B service providers following the Global ComRCI audit failure?"},{"label":"POGO Market Future","query":"How would a complete shutdown of POGOs impact the Philippines' GGR, NGR, and the broader iGaming ecosystem, considering the economic contributions and regulatory challenges?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[439,16333],"tags":[23911,405,15789],"class_list":["post-777003956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-news","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\/777003956","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=777003956"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777003956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777003987,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777003956\/revisions\/777003987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777003956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777003956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777003956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}