MANILA — The government should not look to online cockfighting, or e-sabong, to replace revenues from Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators, which are required to shutter operations by the end of the year, Sen. Joel Villanueva said Sunday.

Villanueva, who filed a bill in September 2022 seeking an outright ban on online gambling, said allowing gambling has social costs that outweigh the potential income from it.

“While we badly need revenues, the choice should not be between the devil and the deep blue sea. We want our revenues coming from legitimate, legal, and sustainable sources,” he said.

READ: Duterte rejects suspending e-sabong ops, cites billions in revenue

While POGOs, which have been tainted by cases of human trafficking, torture and scam operations, cater to foreigners, Villanueva said e-sabong “is far worse because it directly targets our kababayans from all walks of life.”

RELATED: How will government implement Marcos Jr.'s ban on POGOs?

Although banned since May 2022, Villanueva said that, according to the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. in February, close to 800 e-sabong operators continued to hold online cockfights.

Government had also failed to collect taxes from operators and from e-sabong winners, he said.

“Similar to POGOs, e-sabong has brought social costs—worse, it destroys Filipino families, plunges individuals into severe debt, and even forces some to commit theft and crimes to fund their gambling habits,” Villanueva said, stressing the plight of some 30 cockfighting enthusiasts (sabungeros), some of whom hailed from Bulacan, who remain missing to this day,” Villanueva said.

READ: Kin of missing sabungeros vow to continue fight for justice

In seeking a total ban on online gambling, the chair of the Senate labor committee said in his bill that government should make it policy to "eliminate and prohibit all forms of online gambling activities as it undermines the value of an individual’s dignified work by allowing reckless and risky expenditures at the possibility of instant monetary gain which have led many Filipinos to experience dire financial situations."

The House Committee on Games and Amusement has approved a bill to ban e-sabong operations, with panel members calling on the Philippine National Police to enforce President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s 2022 executive order suspending all e-sabong operations.

They said police should go to cockpits and cockfighting arenas hosting the e-sabong operations and confiscate equipment used to broadcast the matches.

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