No to e-sabong revival - senators

Saying e-sabong is worse than Philippine offshore gaming operators, senators are opposing proposals to revive online cockfighting to make up for the forgone revenues due to the ban on POGOS.

Sen. Joel Villanueva yesterday said e-sabong is far worse than POGOs, as it directly targets all kinds of Filipinos, and with 34 online cockfighting aficionados missing since 2022 and believed to have been murdered.

Villanueva earlier filed Senate Bill 1281, seeking to prohibit all forms of online gambling in the country, as Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) officials I will now use the money that is stored in the bank there because that is where it should have gone in the first place," she added.

Gatchalian noted that he would personally focus on the subsidies, which are given by the national government to expand the number of PhilHealth members but has not been done.

He said in some instances, government agencies request funds without considering their absorptive capacity or their capacity to spend, or if the money they were asking for is too much.

"So we should really take the details and carefully examine their request this coming 2025. But I agree that this should be carefully examined and if it is not necessary, let's put it somewhere else," Gatchalian said.

The senator said during the budget hearing that he would ask, "why they (PhilHealth) are spending money slowly. When I looked at their financial standing in 2022, and 2023 they really have too much money that has not been spent, in two years. So that's what I want to bring up when it comes to the budget hearing of the DOH." Poe also said that with its increasing net income annually, PhilHealth should now shoulder the remaining payables of the government to health workers.