Gambling against Corona: Now the pandemic has to serve for the fact that the controversial Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte once again heralds an intellectual turnaround: The man who had thousands of poor people killed because of their drug abuse and demonized gambling, now wants to have the cards reshuffled: Since the middle of last week, gambling has suddenly been okay.
It washes money into the state treasury, which is notoriously low tide.
Christoph Hein
Business correspondent for South Asia / Pacific based in Singapore.
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Just as the extremely strict city-state of Singapore has indulged in two casinos, although it actually demonizes gambling, Duterte now smells the scent of the dollars: “Go ahead and play,” said the Philippine President in Manila. “Now that we need money, the most sensible thing to do is to promote such activities.” It is not yet known whether he will also approve and tax drug trafficking.
However, the owners of the gambling groups are rubbing their hands together. Their shares rose between 5 and 7 percent, according to the president's comments. Shareholders seem to trust the president, even though he's changing his mind at least as quickly as his former counterpart Donald Trump in Washington. In 2018, Duterte ordered a review of a contract that included the leasing of a casino worth around $ 1.5 billion, but the casino never opened. In 2019, he thwarted state lotteries. But Duterte had already amazed in May: while the second Corona wave swept across the country, he allowed Chinese casino operators to reopen - although all other shops had to remain closed and people suffered.
The so-called POGOs (Philippine offshore gaming operators) employ hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers in a sector that is difficult to see through. Even then, the traditionally strong Catholic Church on the islands asked why gambling was allowed again, but Holy Mass was forbidden for security reasons. "The Philippines are moving from being the only Christian nation in East Asia to the main gambling country in the Far East," criticized Martin Jumoad, Archbishop of Ozamis. Duterte remains deaf in this ear. Now he only admonished the gaming companies to at least pay proper taxes.