Senate e-sabong probe focus (Sabong News)

THE Senate inquiry into the disappearance of 34 sabungeros will resolve three key issues in aid of legislation on the status of e-sabong, a lucrative online betting reaping billions of pesos from cockfights. Such regulatory gaps, along with surfacing the missing persons as soon as possible, are what concern the Sen­ate, not the “conspiracy” that gaming giant Charlie “Atong” Ang claims was hatched by rivals to pin the abduc­tions on him, a senator said at the weekend. The three issues were laid down on Sunday by Sen. Francis Tolentino, one of those who actively participated in the two hearings thus far called by the Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs chaired by Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa. According to Tolentino, the Senate inquiry is intended to focus on three issues in aid of legislation: ■ First, is there a law granting enough legal basis for e-sabong? ■ Second, is there a regulatory agency that under current law has le­gal authority to supervise e-sabong? If so, which should this be—the Philip­pine Amusement and Gaming Corp., Games and Amusement Board, or the Department of Trade and Industry? ■ Third and last, has Congress issued any franchise for e-sabong? Tolentino, a lawyer, said in a radio interview his answer to all three is “in the negative,” and that the law on gaming, Republic Act 9487, should be amended to include e-sabong. “Has Congress allowed the delega­tion of franchising to another body?” Tolentino asked aloud, and answered in the negative, thus affirming the point he raised in the first Public Or­der committee hearing on February 24 that Pagcor is on shaky ground in issuing licenses to seven e-sabong operators in the absence of legisla­tive franchises. The licensees are Belvedere Vista Corporation, Lucky 8 Star Quest Inc., Visayas Cockers Club Inc., Jade En­tertainment and Gaming Technolo­gies, Inc., Newin Cockers Alliance Gaming Corporation, Philippine Cockfighting International Inc., and Golden Buzzer Inc. Of the seven, only Ang’s Lucky 8 Star Quest Inc. has had its ap­plication for a legislative franchise advance to plenary in the Senate after gaining endorsement in the House, but Sen. Grace Poe, head of the franchise-granting panel, said on Friday that senators will not rush to grant Ang’s outfit a franchise until the apparent abduc­tions of 34 persons—in six separate cases—are satisfactorily resolved. IN the meantime, Tolentino stressed that Pagcor should at the very least suspend operations of all licensees, since the regulatory framework gaps are so glaring and legalities are in question. This is why, he stressed, 23 senators signed on the resolution and promptly sent to Pagcor and the Office of the President, expressing the sense of the Senate that operations of e-sabong should be halted. “I think the right course of action is to suspend [operations] meantime,” said Tolentino, partly in Filipino. He asserted that Pagcor’s claimed legal basis—legal opinions of the De­partment of Justice and the Office of Solicitor General—for unilaterally issuing licenses despite the e-sabong operators’ lack of a legislative fran­chise is shaky. Tolentino believes it’s time to allow the return of all “physical sabong”—or the traditional week­end cockfights that are a hallmark in many major cities and towns, as the face-to-face cockfight and bet­ting undercuts the need for online, or e-sabong, betting. At the second hearing last March 4, Atong Ang had told senators some of his rivals in the business appear involved in a “conspiracy” to bring him down by pinning on him the abductions, but, he claimed, he had dutifully reported to authorities suspected game-fixing and hacking of li­censed e-sabong web sites by hack­ers and cloners—his way of saying, he follows due process. Tolentino indicated, though, that senators are not inclined to tackle Ang’s so-called “conspiracy” theory because their main concern is to help surface the 34 missing persons and to find answers, in aid of legislation, to the three key issues he listed. Invoking human lives above all, Sen. Koko Pimentel III reiterated in a separate radio interview Sunday that the senators’ main concern in mounting the inquiry is to surface the missing, as he chided those who rue the possible loss of billions in revenue from e-sabong. Before any other consideration, it is important to consider the lives disrupted, said Pimentel III. He noted that several of those missing —including a 14-year-old boy who tagged along with a brother who works in e-sabong, a woman who accompanied her boyfriend, a man asked to drive a van – are innocent parties caught in a grim operation apparently meant to punish suspected fraudsters in the P3-billion-grossing daily business. Even assuming, the  senator said, that “may game fixing, or may nagpakawala lang diyan ng manok na patalo [there’s game fixing, or someone used a gamefowl meant to lose],” it cannot justify such grave reprisals as abduction or, possibly, even murder. Pimentel said the “mastermind” of the abductions is “feeling [like] God” and appealed to the “conscience of the mastermind, and those tasked to execute the orders” to seize people.” The administration senator also chided Pagcor for not having proactively ordered its licensees to act on the total of “10 abductions” since April 2021. Likewise, Pimentel said Pagcor should not insist that only the Office of the President, where the agency is lodged under, can suspend the e-sabong licensees’ operations. Pagcor, he said partly in Filipino, is tossing to the Office of the President the issue of suspending licenses, “and yet, they proudly admitted that when they issued the seven licenses, the governing board [of Pagcor] acted on its own, did not ask the President’s permission.”