Philippines' Marcos bans offshore gaming operators

MANILA (Reuters) -Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos banned offshore gambling operators on Monday, targeting an online industry that the regulator has said is dominated by Chinese firms and includes unlicensed groups that have branched out into crime.

Marcos won a standing ovation in Congress as he announced the order in his State of the Nation address. "The grave abuse and disrespect to our system of laws must stop," Marcos said to loud applause.

"Disguising as legitimate entities, their operations have ventured into illicit areas furthest from gaming such as financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture, even murder," Marcos told the assembly.

The president's order comes at a time of growing tensions with China, particularly over reefs and shoals in the busy waterway of the South China Sea where both nations have overlapping claims.

There was no immediate comment from the Chinese Embassy in Manila.

Last month, it urged the Philippines to ban online gaming to support China's own crackdown on cross-border gambling.

At the time, Beijing said it opposed what it said were baseless accusations that the Chinese government was linked to the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators known as POGOs.

Many of the POGOs also target customers in China where gambling is illegal.

Senator Risa Hontiveros, who is leading an investigation in the upper house into alleged links of POGOs to criminal syndicates, called Marcos's move a "victory for the entire nation".

"POGOs have brought innumerable and unspeakable social ills into the country," she said in a statement.

The chief of the gaming regulator, Alejandro Tengco, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tengco told Reuters last month around 250 to 300 offshore gambling firms are operating in the Philippines without a licence, around six times more than the 46 legitimate gaming operators in the country.

The online gaming industry emerged in the Philippines in 2016, coinciding with the rise of then President Rodrigo Duterte, who backed the gaming regulator's move to license internet gambling companies.

The POGO industry employed around 25,000 Filipinos and nearly 23,000 foreigners as of end-2023, government data show.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales, Karen Lema, and Mikhail Flores; Editing by Bernadette Baum, John Mair and Andrew Heavens)