Tulfo grills PAGCOR on P607-M confidential funds in 2022-23

Senator Raffy Tulfo on Thursday grilled the Philippine Amusement Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) on the millions of confidential funds that were allocated to the government-owned corporation in 2022 and 2023.

At  a hearing of the Senate Committee on Games and Amusement, Tulfo raised that PAGCOR was allocated P500 million confidential funds in 2023, P120 million of which was spent and liquidated in a matter of seven days.

PAGCOR Chairperson Alejandro Tengco explained that they had approval from the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC) for the P500 million confidential funds but they "did not utilize" it.

Tulfo argued that PAGCOR should not receive confidential funds because monitoring illegal gambling should be the responsibility of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).

The lawmaker then mentioned that PAGCOR also received P107 million worth of confidential funds in 2022 which Tengco confirmed.

The PAGCOR official responded that the 2022 funds were spent on curbing illegal activities in internet gaming.

"Marami pong pinaggatus[an] [‘yun.] Kasi nga po noon 258 more or less or hindi ako sure, basta sabihin na natin na 250 na mga internet gaming licensees po who were mostly involved in criminal activities so that was the reason, Mr. Senator, that we had [intelligence] gathering and kami po ang nakapagpasara ng ilang mga internet gaming licensees at nakapag-deport po kami ng humigit kumulang po yatang 2,000," he said.

"Kami po ang nagbayad lahat ng deportation. Kaya po namin nasubaybayan lahat ng illegal activities na ‘yun sa aming ahensya," he added.

(It covered a lot of expenses. There were more or less 250 internet gaming licensees who were mostly involved in criminal activities that we placed under intelligence gathering. We were the ones who closed them down and we deported around 2,000 [individuals]).

Before Tengco could continue, Tulfo asked PAGCOR to provide records of the activities in which they had spent the confidential funds.

"For me, parang redundant eh. Kasi 'yung PNP and NBI might have the same records showing that sila ang nagpasara because of their confidential funds, nagkaroon sila ng assets na nagbigay sa kanila ng info kaya nila nahuli 'yun," Tulfo said.

(It seems redundant to me. The PNP and NBI might have the same records showing they were the ones who closed these establishments down because of their confidential funds, that they had assets that provided them with information that led to arrests.)

PAGCOR said they will provide the documents the senator requested.—RF, GMA Integrated News