Philippines government ≠ Philippines president ≠ Philippines senators
What online and land-based casino brings to Philippines? Tourists, foreign investment, economy development and higher employeement rate: in 2019, online gambling contributes P551 billion (10 billion USD) to Philippine economy yearly.
Philippines GDP of 2019 is 330 Billion USD, so gambling industry contributed 3% of its GDP.
This only refers to DIRECT contribution, if you consider peripheral contributions and those underground gaming companies, it is definitely a shocking number.
Look at following charts, it indicates the real-estate construction or rental market for gaming companies, it is huge, usually the rental fee for gaming companies can range from 30USD - 100USD/sqm/month.
Other spending that gaming companies have to pay including: internet, FMCG, banking, entertainment and other spendings, most of the spending will go to Philippines market, taxes, license fee and most importantly - employeement rate.
However, there is always another side of one story, what else brought to the country is robbery, kidnapping, tax evasion, this is exactly why some senators hate gambling industry, even president himself said he hates gambling but he also said he can only let gambling continue earlier this year, because of ecomomy consideration.
FUTURE?
Online gambling enterprises, mainly operated by foreigners, have resulted in an influx of Chinese workers in the country, many of them without working permits. Estimated yearly there are 200,000 - 300,000 Chinese employees in Philippines working in Gaming industry, since last year Chinese government started 'Return Advice' and 'push' Chinese employees return to China, this will result in a employee shortage situation and make some gaming companies cannot have enough workers, some of them already started to move to other countries, this will affect Philippines' economy.
Having said this, it is not Philippines government 'push' gaming companies out of the country, it is these companies do not want to pay heavy taxes and their business cannot run smoothly upon Chinese government's pressure on gaming employees.
This situation, in a short period, is not reversible, only huge and regulated gaming companies will sustain in Philippines, those unlicensed and underground companies will seek a new place to stay, recently, Ukraine, UAE.