MANILA – The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) are working tirelessly to take down all illegal gaming websites, Malacañang said Thursday.
Palace Press Officer Claire Castro expressed worry over the apparent increase in the number of Filipinos getting addicted to online games.
In a Palace press briefing, Castro said the DICT has so far removed 7,000 unauthorized online gaming sites identified by PAGCOR.
“Ang problema po ngayon ng gobyerno ay marami pong ilegal na (The problem of the government now is there are many illegal) gaming websites,” she said.
“Kapag po naipasara, mag-iiba na ng website. Pero hindi po titigil ang PAGCOR at ang DICT sa pagtanggal ng mga ganitong klaseng website. Kaya lamang po ay magiging paulit-ulit dahil paulit-ulit silang nagbabago ng kanilang website (Once they are shut down, they will make another illegal website. But PAGCOR and the DICT will not stop removing these types of websites. However, it will just be repetitive because they will keep on changing their website).”
Castro said the government would not tolerate the prevalence of unlicensed Internet gaming platforms, urging the public not to promote the illegal websites.
Asked if there is a plan to impose a total ban on online games, such as Scatter, Castro said it is not feasible since they are licensed and accredited by PAGCOR.
Castro, nevertheless, assured that Scatter and other PAGCOR-licensed online games are “controlled and monitored.”
She also advised the public to report to PAGCOR the names of those who are encountering problems because of online game addiction to deny them access to any online game platforms.
“Namo-monitor po ito at kung ang pamilya man ay nagkakaproblema sa kanilang kamag-anak dahil nagugumon sa sugal, maaari po sila agad pumunta sa PAGCOR para po ma-ban ang tao na ito sa paglalaro (This is monitored and if the family is having problems with their relative because of gambling addiction, they can immediately go to PAGCOR to have this person banned from gambling),” Castro said. (PNA)