PALACE Press Officer Claire Castro yesterday said the government is working on taking down illegal gaming websites operating in the country, amid reports of the supposed growing addiction to “Scatter” or online casino games.
Castro said that while Scatter is a game offered by licensed gaming websites, there are still those that operate illegal gambling websites.
She said there are still “thousands” of illegal gambling websites.
She said the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) had already closed down some 7,000 illegal gaming websites. She, however, did not say when the sites were taken down.
Castro said despite this, there are some companies that simply rebranded and renamed their gaming sites.
“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 (PAGCOR and DCT will not stop taking down these kinds of website, even if they repeatedly rename and restart their websites),” she added.
She, however, urged the public to be wary of the illegal websites and not to patronize them.
No COVID Nimbus in PH yet
HEALTH Secretary Teodoro Herbosa yesterday said there is no reported or confirmed case of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) variant, NB.1.8.1, or “Nimbus,” in the Philippines yet.
In a briefing in Malacañang, Herbosa said the Epidemiology Bureau of the Department of Health (DOH) is closely monitoring COVID-19 cases in the country and in other Southeast Asian countries where the Nimbus variant is rampant.
“I have not received any report [about COVID-Nimbus] but we will now monitor that, we will conduct surveillance, we will select samples and have the RITM (Research Institute for Tropical Medicine) do the genome sequencing to know if the variant is already in the country,” he said in Filipino.
Herbosa assured those who have been vaccinated against the COVID-19 that they are still protected from the Nimbus variant.
Among the symptoms of the new COVID variant is a severe painful sore throat, or what is called “razor blade throat.”
