Gaming regulator Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. said PhilWeb Corp.’s gaming license will be up for public bidding in compliance with the law.
PhilWeb said in a disclosure to the stock exchange it was informed by Pagcor that renewing the company’s intellectual property censing and management agreement “is no longer feasible without going though Republic Act 9184.”
RA 9184, or the Government Procurement Reform Act, prescribes the necessary rules and regulations for the modernization, standardization and regulation of the procurement activities of the government.
“We would like to clarify that during the meeting between Pagcor and PhilWeb representatives last Nov. 4, 2016, we explained to your representatives that the selection of the service provider for Pagcor’s online gaming operations will be in accordance to the Republic Act 9184 preferably through public bidding,” Pagcor chairman and chief executive Andrea Domingo said in a letter to PhilWeb chairman Gregorio Ma. Araneta III.
“Further we explained to your representative that merely renewing the IPLMA, without going through RA 9184 is no longer legally feasible. The situation when the IPLM was originally implemented by Pagcor was essentially the lone service provider more or less a decade ago, is no longer the same,” Domingo said in the latter.
Pagcor, however, assured PhilWeb that it was expediting the procurement process for a new service provider and that the agency was on schedule within the timeline earlier provided to PhilWeb.
PhilWeb’s IPLMA expired on Aug. 10 without being renewed by Pagcor, after President Rodrigo Duterte earlier vowed to stop the proliferation of online gambling in the country.
PhilWeb, which has been managing the gaming regulator’s e-games network for the past 14 years, had to close down its network of e-games outlets, which affected 5,000 workers.
Pagcor majority shareholder Roberto Ongpin also divested his entire stake in PhilWeb in favor of Araneta for P2 billion.
PhilWeb then submitted a new application for an omnibus IPLMA for the e-Games network.
Araneta earlier expressed hope that PhilWeb would be able to have its gaming license renewed before the end of 2016.
Araneta said once the license was renewed, PhilWeb would immediately re-operate the 286 existing e-Games outlets of Pagcor, putting its 5,000 employees and operators back to work.
Duterte, however, said he ordered the closure of all online gaming facilities in the country, amid the controversy involving Chinese operators.