Lawmakers buck proposal to legalize e-sabong, cite effects on poor people
By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio and John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporters
LAWMAKERS have rejected a proposal to legalize online cockfighting or e-sabong to replace lost revenue from Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGO), saying it would only spawn more crimes and worsen poverty.
“The pernicious effects of e-sabong affects poor people,” Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus B. Rodriguez told BusinessWorld in an interview last week. “It will deepen poverty. The problem with e-sabong is that even young people could gamble too through the internet.”
Some congressmen have sought to legalize online cockfighting operations to boost state revenue after a presidential ban on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs). They said the practice continues despite a two-year presidential ban started by ex-President Rodrigo R. Duterte.
The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) earlier said it would lose as much as P7.5 billion in yearly revenue due to the closure of POGOs.
It generated about P6.2 billion from license fees on legal online cockfighting operators from 2021 to 2022, PAGCOR Chairman Alejandro H. Tengco said.
The House of Representatives committee on games and amusements last week approved a bill that seeks to criminalize e-sabong.
“I’m just following what President Rodrigo Duterte ordered banning it and continue President Marcos’ order to [stop e-sabong],” Mr. Rodriguez, who authored the measure, said.
Mr. Marcos issued an order in 2022 that kept the ban on online cockfighting operations.
Under the House bill, operators of online cockfighting face a jail term of up to 20 years and fines of as much as P5 million, Mr. Rodriguez said. “This will now empower our government to have a law… giving them the necessary tools to combat illegal e-sabong.”
The House ways and means committee has received proposals from PAGCOR and the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority to boost government revenue in the gaming sector, Albay Rep. Jose Ma. Clemente S. Salceda said. He did not elaborate.
“The gaming sector, particularly in the online space, is already expanding,” he told BusinessWorld in a Viber message.
“Some industry analysts expect 12-15% annual revenue growth for some stocks in the Philippine Stock Exchange that are engaged in the gaming sector,” he said. “So, the first question to us would be: Are current players being taxed at sufficient levels?”
The government should consider whether it wants to keep e-sabong in a “controlled, regulated and taxed policy enclosure” or keep it illegal, allowing it to operate unfettered.
“The legalization of e-sabong will introduce the same social costs as POGOs,” Leonardo A. Lanzona, an economics professor at the Ateneo De Manila University, said in a Facebook Messenger chat. “The government has to move away from these seemingly easy solutions with significant social costs.”
Policymakers should not merely look at regulating gambling activities for the sake of collecting state revenues, Filomeno S. Sta Ana III, coordinator of think tank Action for Economic Reforms, said via Viber.
“With respect to gambling regulation, other factors beyond getting revenues have weightier considerations,” he said.
He said the state should conduct a cost-benefit analysis to consider the effects of gambling on society, government capacity to regulate the industry and the risk of money laundering.
Senator Emmanuel Joel J. Villanueva said e-sabong would only spawn more crimes.
“We have just defeated an enemy with the POGO ban, and now some are considering resurrecting e-sabong, which is far worse because it directly targets our countrymen from all walks of life,” he said in a statement. “We want our revenues coming from legitimate, legal and sustainable sources.”
Mr. Marcos in his third address to Congress in July ordered a total ban on POGOs, citing their links to crimes such as money laundering, prostitution and human trafficking.
He ordered PAGCOR to close all POGO facilities by yearend.
Mr. Villanueva said these gambling operations would only plunge Filipinos in debt and are unlikely to generate substantial state revenue.
Mr. Duterte in May 2022 banned internet-based cockfighting after dozens of gamblers who got hooked went missing.
About 30 gamblers went missing between 2021 and 2022, prompting a congressional probe. The cases remain unsolved.
“No matter how you look at it, the social costs of gambling overshadow the intended benefits,” Mr. Villanueva said. “We cannot simply turn a blind eye to the suffering of our people who have become victims of the pitfalls of gambling.”