the allegations made during a senate hearing<\/a>, Villanueva now says the comment was “purely gossip.”<\/p>\n\n\n\nFrancisco told The Philippine News Agency: “What he said was [that] he was not referring to anybody and [that] these are just rumours among the intelligence community. But I told him, ‘Sir, the ex-chiefs of the PNP were concerned and this statement became a big concern and issue within the PNP.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Francisco said the CIDG will no longer proceed with the investigation<\/strong> into Villanueva’s claim. He indicated that he would seek guidance regarding the possibility of pursuing a case against Villanueva<\/strong>. The Council of Chiefs had demanded a public apology from Villanueva if he could not prove his allegation.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPhilippine senate hearing: senator Gatchalian backs increased PAOCC budget<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Senator Win Gatchalian<\/strong> has called for an increase in the budget for the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) to enhance its operations against illegal offshore gaming operators. During a Senate hearing, Gatchalian praised the PAOCC for leading raids against offshore gaming operators but said: \u201cUnfortunately, their manpower complement is not sufficient to sustain further operations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe senator emphasised the importance of the commission being able to properly enforce the upcoming ban on offshore gaming operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are currently 41 licenced internet gaming licensees (IGLs), previously known as Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs), operating in the country. However, PAGCOR has raised concerns that there may be up to 250 operators without licences that could be involved in criminal activities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Authorities are analysing whether to pursue a case against Raul Villanueva.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":777018832,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Raul Villanueva, PAGCOR's SVP for security, has retracted his claims of bribery against former Philippine National Police chiefs, now stating they were \"purely gossip,\" leading the CIDG to halt its investigation into the allegations but consider a case against Villanueva. Concurrently, Senator Win Gatchalian advocates for an increased budget for the PAOCC to enhance its enforcement capabilities against illegal offshore gaming operators, citing a significant number of unlicensed entities.","focusai_entities":"Raul Villanueva, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR), Philippine National Police (PNP), Leo Francisco, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), Council of Chiefs, Win Gatchalian, Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC)","focusai_location":"Philippines","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.8), affiliate_publisher (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"PAGCOR Integrity Impact","query":"What are the potential governance implications for PAGCOR's licensing and oversight functions following a senior executive's retraction of serious bribery allegations?"},{"label":"POGO Ban Enforcement","query":"How will the proposed increase in PAOCC's budget and manpower specifically enhance the enforcement efficacy of the upcoming ban on offshore gaming operations, particularly against the estimated 250 unlicensed entities?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[439,158,16333],"tags":[23911],"class_list":["post-777019303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal-news","category-slider-home","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-gambling-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777019303","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=777019303"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777019303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777019320,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777019303\/revisions\/777019320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777018832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777019303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777019303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777019303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}