Philippine gaming regulator PAGCOR has hit back at comments made by the attorney representing Bamban mayor Alice Guo, who was this week slapped with a six-month preventative suspension without pay while authorities investigate her alleged ties with a local POGO operator.
Guo is alleged to have aided the illegal activities of POGO firm Zun Yuan Technology Incorporated, whose premises was raided by authorities earlier this year on suspicion of being involved in human trafficking and cryptocurrency scams. The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) last month filed charges of grave misconduct, conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service, and gross neglect of duty against the officials against her before the Office of the Ombudsman issued a suspension order against Guo and two others this week.
It was also revealed overnight that 49 police officers assigned to the Bamban Municipal Police Station in Tarlac province have been relieved from their posts while the investigation continues.
Guo’s legal representatives, the David & Jamilla Law Offices, issued a statement this week in which they said the mayor “vehemently denies any involvement” in the POGO operations and instead laid the blame with PAGCOR.
“Mayor Guo is the victim here,” the statement read. “She is unfairly implicated in issues that are rooted in the regulatory responsibilities of PAGCOR.”
In response, PAGCOR issued a statement of its own overnight in which it said it took issue with those comments by Atty. Nicole Rose Margaret Jamilla.
PAGCOR’s statement in full says:
PAGCOR’s regulations are clear cut. If our licensees are found violating the terms of their licenses, whether these are provisional licenses or regular licenses, they are severely fined and penalized and, in the most serious cases, the licenses are revoked.
PAGCOR has nothing to do with the issuance of local business permits and licenses. We are also not responsible for the inspection of buildings that are not under our jurisdiction. We issue licenses based on our own guidelines and the documents submitted by applicants.
In the case of the raided compound in Bamban last March 13, 2024, one of the entities doing business in the compound was Zun Yuan Technologies, Inc. which was the holder of a provisional license from PAGCOR issued only last October 19, 2023.
Zun Yuan’s registered address was the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors of A1 Building inside the compound of Baofu Land Development Inc. We had people from the Compliance, Monitoring and Enforcement Department assigned there to monitor their operations.
Outside of those premises, PAGCOR had no access to the rest of the 8-hectare compound and the 39 other buildings there, many of which were highly restricted and inaccessible to the public. Hence, our people could not have legally monitored activities there.
Aside from monitoring and enforcement of PAGCOR rules, the only role of PAGCOR in the raided illegal facilities in Bamban was the issuance of a provisional license to Zun Yuan Technologies, which had been revoked immediately after the March 13 raid.
For the record, it is only under the present PAGCOR administration that the real anomalies in the former Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators or POGO activities have been exposed.
It is only under the present leadership that at least ten (10) raids against POGOs have been successfully conducted, leading to discovery and exposure of criminal activities being perpetrated by some of the licensees.
The issue of offshore gaming operators, now known as Internet Gaming Licensees (IGLs), remains a divisive issue in the Philippines with some senators pushing to ban the industry altogether.
PAGCOR has instead promised to clean up the industry, and recently issued its first offshore gaming licenses under the IGL banner after last year placed all POGO licensees under a probationary stance.
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