A vice chairman of the House Committee on Games and Amusement on Thursday said the plan of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) to start issuing in January Gaming Employment License (GEL) identification cards to all foreigners working for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (Pogo) will help government monitor better the rising number of such workers.
“I was told by Pagcor that they will start issuing GEL ID by January,” Ang Probinsyano Rep. Ronnie Ong said in an interview.
Besides the GEL ID, Ong said a proper Filipino culture education for Pogo workers will be undertaken.
With the GEL ID, Ong said workers can be properly documented and protected at all times from extortionists. “We cannot pretend anymore that the Pogo industry is small. We should have a system to monitor them. That’s why we are pushing for the GEL ID,” he added.
The recent kidnapping incident involving Pogo workers in Makati could have been avoided, he said, “if we have a monitoring system and if they have GEL ID…we can address this immediately [with proper monitoring of workers].”
Apart from allowing the government to properly monitor the increasing number of Pogo employees in the country, the issuance of the GEL IDs would also help the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) in its tax mapping for the Pogo sector, he said.
“Also, somehow this GEL ID will benefit the country because if we can monitor them, they will be able to pay the right taxes,” Ong added.
Currently, Pagcor issues the GEL to gaming industry employees except for those working in Pogos, who are mostly Chinese.
According to Ong, the GEL ID cards that are being issued at a cost of P4,000 per individual are mere certificates and not physical IDs which can help immigration and law-enforcement personnel distinguish those who are licensed and those who are not.
“These Pogo personnel can be seen practically everywhere [such] that there are even instances where you would think that you are in China. I think that through Pagcor, these Pogo employees should be fully documented and identified not only for the good of the country but also for their own protection,” Ong said.
The Department of Finance, citing its initial list, said there are some 138,000 foreigners working in the Pogo sector, of whom 54,241 have been given alien employment permits and another 83,760 hold special working permits.
Taxes
Meanwhile, House Committee on Games and Amusement Chairman Eric Yap said it was confirmed that only 10 out of 62 Pogo operators are paying taxes.
“It is high time we address this issue because of the increasing number of Pogos in the country. Their contributions to our coffers pale in comparison with their income from this industry. Whether offshore or [operating inside the] Philippines, they should pay,” Yap said.
Yap added that representatives from Pagcor, the Department of Labor and Employment and the Bureau of Immigration also gave conflicting figures as to the actual number of foreign Pogo workers in the country.
“To a certain extent, the discrepancy is understandable because the numbers are coming from different sources. Pagcor gets it from the figures declared by licensees, Immigration has figures based on those issued with working visa while DOLE is getting data from its list of those issued Alien Employment Permit,” he said.
Yap asked these agencies to consolidate their data for proper identification of Pogo workers.