Philippines electronic gaming outlet service provider PhilWeb Corporation has placed 184 employees on leave for a period of one month due to the extension of Enhanced Community Quarantine across the main island of Luzon through 30 April 2020.
In a filing, PhilWeb said the one month’s “forced leave” was effective from Thursday 16 April and was done “to ensure adequate availability of resources when the company resumes its business operations.”
The company noted the forced leave period may be shortened should quarantine measures be lifted at the end of the month and provided approvals are quickly granted by government and regulatory agencies.
PhilWeb, which has been gradually ramping up business since regaining its operating license in August 2017, had previously tipped 2020 as the year it returned to profitability.
“We’re poised this year, it’s going to be the turnaround year,” Vice Chairman Crisanto Roy B. Alcid said in October.
PhilWeb was forced to shut down in 2016 when President Rodrigo Duterte took aim at the company’s former majority shareholder, Roberto Ongpin, and refused to renew its license to provide gambling services to PAGCOR approved electronic gaming cafés.
The license was returned in August 2017 after Ongpin sold his entire 53.75% stake.