MANILA, Philippines – The Marcos administration is set to cancel the work visas of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) employees by October 15, giving them time to leave the Philippines without issues as their employers wind down operations, Rappler has learned.
The mostly Chinese POGO workers will lose their commercial 9G visas (also known as pre-arranged employment visas) by the said date. They can be granted tourist visas that will expire in 60 days, in time for the enforcement of the President’s total POGO ban by the end of 2024.
Commercial 9G visas are given to foreigners who work in companies that have license to operate in the Philippines. This type of visa allows the holders to enter and exit the Philippines multiple times during their employment, and to stay here for a period that does not exceed their employment contracts.
This visa can only be granted by immigration authorities if the applicant has an Alien Employment Permit issued by the Philippine labor department.
High-level meetings
Rappler has it on good authority that a decision was finalized after six or seven meetings that, at one point or another, included representatives from the justice, labor, and interior departments, as well as the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor), the National Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau of Immigration.
The meetings started more than a week after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced in his State of the Nation Address in July that all POGOs — renamed as internet gaming licensees since October 2023 — should be out of business in the Philippines by yearend.
In at least one of the meetings, government officials sat down with the representatives of the six largest legal POGOs, which account for about 21,000 workers.
Notice to affected workers
The government is preparing to publish a notice in leading newspapers addressed to the affected foreign POGO workers. With text in English and Mandarin, the notice will provide information on the steps that the workers will have to take for a smooth transition.
A Rappler source said the notice should help protect the affected workers from unscrupulous government workers or agents who might attempt to cite false guidelines, requirements, or violations to extort from the workers.
Hotlines will be set up for the said workers.
What happens after visa cancellation
POGO workers can avail themselves of early repatriation before their work visas are even canceled.
Those who will wait for their 9G visas to be canceled will be given 60-day tourist visas. That’s enough “due process” that will allow the workers to wind down their engagements in the country, said an informed source present in the meetings.
Then, “they will all have to leave by December 31. Wala nang legal (They are all considered illegal) by December 31.”
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How many workers need to leave?
Government sources have been giving varying numbers of foreign workers at POGOs:
- Pagcor in 2023 said that a total of 22,184 foreigners — 7,534 of them Chinese — were working in licensed POGOs.
- The finance department, meanwhile, cited data from the same year that there were 41,347 foreign workers.
- Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission spokesman Winston Casio said “180,000 to 200,000 Chinese nationals” at the peak of POGO operations during the administration of president Rodrigo Duterte had not left the Philippines.
Clearly, the revenue-generating agencies were citing figures based on the 43 POGOs still operating legally, while the law enforcers’ estimates include those from the 250 or so POGOs whose licenses had long been revoked and had been operating underground.
The numbers of foreign workers in both legal and illegal POGOs were apparently considered in the meetings that led to the decision to cancel the commercial 9G visas.
A time and motion study being done by the concerned agencies is based on around 100,000 POGO workers being repatriated by yearend.
“There may not be enough [commercial] flights if we will have to repatriate 2,500 to 3,000 a day,” a source said. “Should we consider the chartered flights, which are more expensive? These are some of the details being ironed out.”
In the past, the Chinese embassy in Manila had paid for the deportation of their citizens who were arrested in raids on illegal POGOs. – Rappler.com