{"id":7843,"date":"2020-07-05T14:55:53","date_gmt":"2020-07-05T14:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=7843"},"modified":"2026-04-24T03:56:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T06:56:03","slug":"secretary-says-pogos-paid-under-the-table","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/secretary-says-pogos-paid-under-the-table","title":{"rendered":"Secretary says POGOs paid under the table"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Two Philippine senators have asked for allegations of unoffocial payments from POGOs to be investigated after Foreign Affairs Secretary&#8217;s tweet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Philippines.- Senators are calling for an investigation after Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. said in a tweet that Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) have paid taxes, but did so \u201cunder the table\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He wrote in his certified official profile on the social network: \u201cThe tax-evading POGOs did pay out as you must suspect but under the table which puzzled them. Usually they line up in a revenue office and pay up but this was special: collector whose affiliation to any department was kept a mystery turned up himself like home pick up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following Locsin\u2019s message, two senators have asked for the allegations to be investigated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The tax-evading POGOs did pay out as you must suspect but under the table which puzzled them. Usually they line up in a revenue office and pay up but this was special: collector whose affiliation to any department was kept a mystery turned up himself like home pick up. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FA3z4CtjsB\">https:\/\/t.co\/FA3z4CtjsB<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Teddy Locsin Jr. (@teddyboylocsin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/teddyboylocsin\/status\/1278461153082040320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 1, 2020<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Senator Joel Villanueva has suggested the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) should investigate the existence of the mysterious \u201ccollector\u201d the Secretary mentioned, and Senator Francis Pangilinan has proposed the Senate investigate the issue, Inquirer reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Locsin\u2019s comments came on a week in which the Philippines Government said POGO\u2019s that had left the country after not being able to resume operations due to tax debts would still be <strong><em><a aria-label=\"undefined (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/pogos-must-settle-bills-before-leaving-the-country\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">still liable for those compromises.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The BIR has estimated it should be <strong><em><a aria-label=\"undefined (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/the-philippines-expects-p20-billion-from-pogos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">receiving about P20 billion<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (USD399million) per year from POGOs, while companies paid little over P6 billion in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two Philippine senators have asked for allegations of unoffocial payments from POGOs to be investigated after Foreign Affairs Secretary&#8217;s tweet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7846,"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 senators are demanding an investigation into allegations of \"under the table\" tax payments by Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), following a tweet from the Foreign Affairs Secretary. This development highlights significant discrepancies between estimated and collected POGO tax revenues, raising concerns about regulatory compliance and governance frameworks within the iGaming sector.","focusai_entities":"Teodoro L. Locsin Jr., Joel Villanueva, Francis Pangilinan, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), Senate, Philippines Government","focusai_location":"Philippines","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"POGO Tax Evasion Impact","query":"What are the projected financial implications for the Philippine government if the alleged POGO tax evasion is substantiated and how might this influence future regulatory frameworks for offshore gaming?"},{"label":"Regulatory Enforcement Gaps","query":"How do these allegations of \"under the table\" payments expose potential weaknesses in the Bureau of Internal Revenue's enforcement mechanisms and the broader governance framework for iGaming in the Philippines?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,16333],"tags":[128,15789],"class_list":["post-7843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regulation-news","category-south-east-asia-news","tag-philippines","tag-pogos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7843","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7843"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7849,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7843\/revisions\/7849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}