Games & Amusements

Sooner or later, things would have come to a head.

We wrote in March that there could be a legal challenge mounted to see if the GARS language (games, amusements, recreational and sports) in the law that created a couple of the country’s special economic zones is wide enough to encompass gambling.  

Well, now Pagcor is formally complaining that PeJI, an entity operating within the Zambo ecozone handing out online gambling licenses, has no right to issue such licenses. Pagcor has sent a cease and desist order to PeJI, saying it has no right to issue gambling permits; PeJI says it has a legal opinion from the Philippine justice secretary that it has the authority to do so. PeJI is ignoring Pagcor.

I’m betting that this will reach the courts. And it won’t stop at a lower court, eventually winding its way to the Supreme Court. If it does, the Supremes should once and for all clarify what it is that “amusements” and “games” covers. Do those terms encompass gambling?

Christopher Arnuco, presidential assistant on trade and vice chair of the Zamboanga City Special Economic Zone (ZSEZ) and Freeport Authority, said gambling operations inside the ecozone were covered by a legal opinion from the Philippines Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez.
 
ZSEZ authorities have already issued a license to Philippine E-gaming Jurisdiction Inc. (PeJI), which maintains an office at the zone’s Technical Enterprise Building B in Barangay San Ramon here, to control e-Gaming and other related activities “conducted within and from the Zamboanga Special Economic Zone (ZSEZ) pursuant to Republic Act No. 7903.”
 
Under the license, PeJI was empowered to receive and process all applications for and award e-Gaming licenses to business operators.
 
But the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) has ordered ZSEZ authorities to stop PeJI’s operation as it is illegal and contrary to their sole mandate to issue such licenses.  And the directive had been ignored.
 
Arnuco insists “…we are authorized under the law to operate, even casino for that matter. What we did was to ask Secretary Gonzalez … and he issued a legal opinion saying that yes we are allowed to do so on May 8, 2007 in reply to an earlier letter by ZSEZ chair Georgina Yu.”
 
Arnuco said Gonzalez told them that “contrary to Pagcor’s assertion, the Zamboanga Ecozone Authority possessed power to issue licenses to would-be locators/investors intending to operate tourism-related activities, including games, amusements and recreational sport facilities, including online/Internet gambling casinos among others, within the Zambo ecozone.
 
“After all, gambling is defined as the act or practice of betting, or the act of playing a game and consciously risking money or other stakes on its outcome, which to us, is squarely within the phrase of games and amusements and recreational and sports,” Arnuco quoted Gonzalez as saying.