Senator Alan Peter Cayetano on Thursday appealed to the Senate to carefully consider its stance on online gambling, emphasizing the government’s trillion-peso investment in education and warning that normalization of gambling and addiction undermines Filipino youth.
“I don’t take it against the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) to raise funds, regulate gambling operators, and look into all kinds of gambling and gaming kasi iyan ang trabaho nila. But to regulate the illegal side, this is where the balance of government comes in,” the senator said in his opening statement during an August 14, 2025 joint public hearing on online gambling.
“If PAGCOR and the Department of Finance are mostly looking at the revenue side, where is the rest of the government?” he added.
Cayetano, chair of the Senate Banks, Financial Institutions, and Currencies Committee, highlighted the City of Taguig’s strict anti-gambling ordinance as a model.
“Taguig is blessed in the late 1990s because we passed an ordinance na bawal ang lahat ng klase ng sugal. When Mayor Lani (Cayetano) became Taguig mayor in 2010, wala po kaming casino. Nilabanan po namin iyan. Personally, I was one who put into law na sa local government, kailangan silang pumayag (sa sugalan). Pati po sabungan at bingo, hindi na namin binigyan ng lisensya,” he explained.
The senator said the city’s ban aims to instill the values of hard work and financial stewardship in Taguigeño youth.
“This is part of teaching our young people to work hard and have the right values, and that every single peso that God gives them needs to be managed well,” he said.
Cayetano pointed out the irony that while traditional modes of gambling — even small-scale games organized during wakes to raise funds for the bereaved — are regulated, online gambling operates with little oversight.
He noted that even minor gambling activities like cara y cruz are raided by Taguig police, yet illegal online gambling remains rampant.
“The irony is makikita ng bata na y’ung cara y cruz hinuhuli, pero y’ung iligal na e-sabong at kahit anong gaming ay pwede,” he said.
“The other irony is that casinos, sabungan, even the lotto outlets have regulations on how far they should be from churches and schools. But actually, mag-CR lang ang estudyante, pwede na siya gumamit ng cellphone sa online gambling,” he added.
A longstanding anti-gambling advocate
Cayetano has a 25-year track record of standing against gambling.
Decades back, he filed the Anti-Gambling Act of 2000 (House Bill No. 12601 – An Act Prohibiting All Forms of Gambling thereby repealing the laws that created the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and the PAGCOR and revoking their respective Congressional franchises.)
His campaign intensified after the disappearance of 34 cockfighters in 2021 which highlighted the dangers of e-sabong.
Cayetano was also the only senatorial candidate in the 2022 elections who ran with an anti-gambling platform when nobody dared to speak against gambling.
In 2022, the senator filed the Anti-Online Gambling Act and continues to push for stricter regulations.
Just weeks before the 20th Congress convened this month, he called for continued scrutiny of the industry, noting that domestic online gambling continues to thrive despite the ban on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs).
Now in the 20th Congress, he is simultaneously pushing for a total ban on online gambling through the Ban on Online Gambling Act (Senate Bill No. 30) a priority measure he filed with Senator Pia Cayetano, and the Anti-Online Gambling Advertisement Act of 2025 (Senate Bill No.109) which seeks to ban gambling promotions across all media platforms.| BNN
