The Catholic church\u2019s Diocese of Kalibo<\/a>\u00a0and the Boracay Foundation Inc (BFI) had previously joined residents against the project. Former president Duterte was initially against allowing gambling on the island but later changed his decision on the grounds that the country needed money in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The founder of DigiPlus, Alfredo Benitez, says that he intends to go ahead with the stalled US$500m casino resort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":32939,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"DigiPlus founder Alfredo Benitez intends to revive a US$500m casino resort project on Boracay Island, Philippines, potentially in partnership with Macau's Galaxy Entertainment Group. The project, which secured a provisional license from PAGCOR in 2018, faced prior opposition from the Duterte administration and various public sectors but may proceed under the current Marcos administration. Land preparation and designs are reportedly underway for the 23-hectare development.","focusai_entities":"Alfredo Benitez, DigiPlus Interactive Corp, Leisure and Resorts World Corporation, Galaxy Entertainment Group, Duterte administration, Marcos administration, PAGCOR, Catholic church, Diocese of Kalibo, Boracay Foundation Inc","focusai_location":"Philippines, Boracay Island, Macau","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (1.0), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (1.0), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Regulatory Policy Shift?","query":"What specific regulatory concessions or policy shifts under the Marcos administration are enabling the revival of this project, given prior opposition from the Duterte administration?"},{"label":"PAGCOR License Status?","query":"What is the current status of DigiPlus's provisional gaming license from PAGCOR, and what are the remaining conditions for its full conversion, particularly concerning land use and environmental compliance?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,16333],"tags":[24370,23959],"class_list":["post-777010160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-digiplus","tag-galaxy-entertainment-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777010160","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=777010160"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777010160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777041138,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777010160\/revisions\/777041138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777010160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777010160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777010160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}