State-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. is open to the government’s proposal to privatize the casinos under its control.
“I am not opposing it… If it is going to happen, it will happen. But it will take a long period of time,” Pagcor chairman and chief executive Andrea Domingo said in a news briefing at Conrad Hotel in Pasay City Tuesday.
“We had no chance [before] to discuss it with the DoF [Department of Finance] as we were busy collecting revenues as much as we can. But we have to discuss it,” Domingo said.
The Duterte administration said earlier it was open to the idea of undertaking the sale of Pagcor casinos. The sale of casinos operated by Pagcor, a wholly-owned government corporation formed in 1977 by a Marcos presidential decree, could earn billions of pesos for the Duterte administration.
Domingo said the agency had yet to determine which of the 46 casinos it was operating would be sold. She said while the valuation of the casinos could happen, Pagcor would try to “make them profitable.”
“We have not started pricing each of the casinos. Others are big and others are small… It still has to be decided,” Domingo said.
She said the outlook for the gaming industry in the Philippines remained bright especially with the change in the government, coupled with the sustained confidence of investors, and the level-playing field in the country.
Pagcor posted a record gross income of P55.06 billion in 2016, up 16.62 percent from P47.21 billion in 2015, driven by higher revenues from gaming, which include table games, electronic games and bingo operations.
Other growth drivers for the record income were fees from licensed casinos and offshore gaming. Domingo said as a result of the bullish growth, it was able to increase its total contributions to the national government by 25.45 percent.
“From P29.07 billion in 2015, our total contributions in 2016 amounted to P36.47 billion. This was P7.40 billion higher than the 2015 figures,” Domingo said.
“With this amount, Pagcor has once again contributed significantly not only to the national coffers and to its mandated beneficiaries but largely to the benefit of the less privileged Filipinos,” Domingo said.