PH Senator vows employment for 23K POGO employees
About 23,000 Filipinos were promised jobs should the national government ban Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) in the country.
In an interview with Super Radyo dzBB, Philippine Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said that they would not neglect the 23,000 individuals who work at various POGO establishments around the country.
According to the senator, who is also the head of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, the employees could easily transition to the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector as many of them are IT experts.
The ways and means committee is currently conducting an inquiry into POGOs following a string of POGO-related kidnappings and the industry’s underwhelming contribution to the economy.
During the Senate committee’s third hearing on POGOs, Gatchalian stated that the Filipino workforce does not necessarily gain anything from POGO as the majority of its 200,000 employees are foreign nationals.
The inquiry also revealed that the third-party auditor of the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) for POGOs does not pay the right amount of taxes and has not given an exact location or a working website to the government.
