PAGCOR chair and CEO Andrea Domingo has responded with caution to calls by the Senate to immediately suspend all regulated e-sabong activities in the country, citing potential legal ramifications.
According to local media reports, Domingo told a Senate hearing on Friday that she would need to seek the explicit permission of President Rodrigo Duterte before suspending the e-sabong, or online cockfighting, business of the nation’s seven licensed operators.
The Senate wants to see e-sabong halted while a full investigation is conducted into the disappearances of at least 31 people in cases believed to be linked to betting on the popular pastime.
“You have the responsibility. You regulate e-sabong and we have a problem with e-sabong so we are expecting that you do your job,” said Senator Ronald dela Rosa on Friday, as per the Philippine News Agency.
However, Domingo replied, “Although we do respect the resolution from 24 senators for us to immediately suspend e-sabong operations, we stand at the peril of having to pay Php640 million (US$12 million) while we suspend [operations] without clear and legal basis.
“We have to look into the repercussions. In the final analysis, it would be PAGCOR who would be responsible for the final decision.”
Domingo said she would travel to the Presidential Palace, Malacañang, to discuss the issue with Duterte although the need to do so has been questioned by Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon.
“My proposition and my belief … since you issued the license without seeking a specific authority from Malacañang, that inherent power to grant the license is the power to suspend without needing the clearance from Malacañang,” Drilon said.
“That is why I find legally no basis for the position of the chair of PAGCOR that they need the license of Malacañang to suspend [e-sabong] when in fact they issued the license without Malacañang’s authority.”
As previously reported by IAG, the unsolved disappearances include 10 men who went missing shortly after being seen in cockfighting arenas in Laguna and Manila on 13 January, another six men after participating in a cockfighting tournament in Manila on the same day and 10 men from Bulacan who have been missing since attended a cockfighting match in mid-2021.
PAGCOR began issuing licenses to selected e-sabong operators in May 2021 in an effort to raise revenues while stamping out illegal online activities.
The regulator said at the time that it “advises the public not to engage in any gaming activity from unlicensed e-sabong operators and unregistered e-sabong websites to avoid being duped and cheated of your hard-earned money.
“It is for the above reasons that PAGCOR had to step in to regulate the emerging industry to primarily protect the Filipino players and to ensure that the government get its appropriate share of revenues from their operations. Without regulation, e-sabong will proliferate and have far reaching detrimental effects on its players.”
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