PAGCOR blasts fake POGO memo “intended to create chaos and confusion”

The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) has denied it issued a document instructing Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) to wind down operations by August.

A widely circulated memo, which features PAGCOR logos and showed a signature from Jessa Mariz Fernandez, head of the regulator’s offshore gaming licensing department, has been denounced as fake.

This came less than a fortnight after Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the country’s president, announced a ban on all POGOs by the end of the calendar year.

PAGCOR has since published a response to the fake document, which was an altered version of a real memo released on 23 July, the day after the president’s state of the nation address.

Fernandez explained: “We have not issued a memorandum ordering LGUs [local government units] to immediately close down POGO operations in their jurisdiction because the president’s order is very clear: we have until the end of the year to wind down POGO operations, and we will follow that.” 

However, the real memo gave no hard deadline for when POGO operations are expected to wind down. It outlines that the closures are “pending finalisation of the details and process of winding down”, adding that operations “may remain in the status quo” between now and the turn of the year.

“We have until the end of the year to wind down POGO operations, and we will follow that,” Fernandez added.

“This is a clear disinformation intended to create chaos and confusion. Whoever is behind this clearly has ulterior motives, and we shall ask the National Bureau of Investigation to investigate and unmask them to determine their motives.”

President Marcos Jr was scathing in his assessment of POGOs during his address, claiming: “Disguising as legitimate entities, their operations have ventured into elicit areas beyond gaming, such as financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture – even murder.

“The grave abuse and disrespect to our system of laws must stop. It is necessary to stop this disturbance in our society, and desecration of our country.”

The news has sent significant shockwaves around an industry that employs hundreds of thousands of people, large sections of which are Chinese nationals hired to assist with offering gambling services to mainland China, where all forms of gambling is illegal.

For the Filipinos impacted by the president’s order, the Department of Labor and Employment, an executive department of the government, has been deployed to help find as many new jobs as possible.

Elsewhere, the government’s Department of Finance, which has backed the ban of POGOs alongside the National Economic and Development Authority, has revealed that by allowing POGOs, the decision is costing the country about 99.5bn Philippine pesos (£1.32bn) a year.