A cause-oriented group asked the Supreme Court to issue an order restoring the right to grant online gaming franchises to economic zones and hold state-run Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. in contempt for alleged usurpation of judicial powers.
The Anti-Trapo Movement of the Philippines Inc. said in a 14-page petition filed before the SC that Pagcor erred in arrogating upon itself the authority to “interpret and implement the law” hence giving itself the exclusive privilege to “centralize and integrate all games of chance” as defined by Presidential Decree No. 1869.
The group asked the high tribunal to issue a status quo ante order (literally meaning the way things were before) “restoring the regulation of internet/online gaming to the economic zones that were created by special law for that purpose.”
The petitioner also claimed that in issuing the questioned regulations, “Pagcor has interpreted the law to include internet/online gambling” within its authority.
Anti-Trapo Movement founder and chairman Leon Peralta, who filed the petition, described Pagcor’s argument as “an affront” to the SC.
Peralta filed his plea in response to Pagcor’s comment to his earlier petition for prohibition seeking to disallow Pagcor from extending internet gaming franchises to private operators.
Peralta, who is not a lawyer, said the Supreme Court, and not a mere government-owned or controlled corporation, is the “true agency of the government with the authority to interpret the law.”
He cited as precedent the SC ruling on a case initiated by former Sen. Robert Jaworski rejecting Pagcor’s erroneous assertion that it could regulate internet/online gambling.
Pagcor, in its comment filed by the Office of Government Corporate Counsel, argued that Section 10 of PD 1869 cited jai alai as the only gaming activity expressly excluded from Pagcor’s coverage.
“If it were really the intention of Congress to exclude internet gaming, then it would have expressly included the latter in the exclusion,” Pagcor said in its comment.
Peralta said Pagcor was apparently using a “bogus” document purporting to be PD 1869, saying the phrase “except jai alai” did not appear in the genuine version of PD 1869 as published in the Official Gazette on Dec. 26, 1983.