PAGCOR Chairman and CEO Alejandro Tengco said Wednesday that he welcomes the filing of charges against him and previous members of the Philippines gaming regulator’s board, describing it as an opportunity to “find out the truth and determine accountability within the agency”.
Tengco’s comments follow reports that he is one of 10 people charged with graft before the Office of the Ombudsman in relation to the alleged illegal release of a Php75 million (US$1.32 million) bond owed to an e-sabong operator. Specifically, it is alleged by the Chairman and majority shareholder of e-sabong operator Kamura Highlands Gaming and Holdings Inc, Joaquin Sy, that the bond – initially posted to secure an e-sabong license – was illegally refunded to the daughter of a high-ranking executive at Kamura and that attempts to follow-up with PAGCOR on the status of the missing funds were ignored.
While such events are understood to have occurred during the tenure of the previous PAGCOR board, Tengco and his Chief of Staff, Dianne Erica Jogno, have also been charged with alleged obstruction of justice for “their deliberate concealment of the crimes and unjustified refusal to respond to the letters of the complainant within the period prescribed (by the law),” according to the complaint.
In a statement issued Wednesday, Tengco reaffirmed that the alleged disappearance of the money happened during the previous administration but said he wanted to get to the bottom of exactly how the situation came to be in the first place.
“While we find it strange that we are included in the alleged charges, we nevertheless will pursue our own investigation and determine what really happened, and bring the perpetrators to justice if indeed there was any anomaly,” he said.
PAGCOR noted that two former board members named in the action – Carmen Pedrosa and Reynaldo Concordia – had already passed away when the alleged disappearance of the Php75 million took place sometime in July 2022. Tengco, who says an investigation is already underway, was appointed PAGCOR’s new Chairman and CEO on 23 August 2022.
“We have launched an internal investigation and we are trying to recreate the sequence of events since the department allegedly involved, the E-Sabong Licensing Department, has already been disbanded,” he said.
“Former President Duterte outlawed e-sabong in May 2022 and the people in the E-Sabong Licensing Department have since been reassigned to other units so now we are trying to retrace the supposed anomalous transaction.
“While this happened before we came to PAGCOR, the public can rest assured that we will get to the bottom of this, and that we will respond to the accusations against us in the proper venue once we receive a copy of the alleged charges from the Ombudsman.”
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