MANILA - The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) rejected on Thursday tycoon Roberto Ongpin's offer to donate his 20-billion stake in gaming cafe operator PhilWeb Corp. to the regulator.

Ongpin offered 49 percent of PhilWeb to Pagcor to save the jobs of close to 6,000 people after the regulator refused to renew its operating license last week.

The businessman, singled out by President Rodrigo Duterte as an "oligarch" who must be destroyed, owns 53.76 percent of PhilWeb. He said he would donate his remaining 4.76-percent share to a scholarship fund named after his late brother.

"The issue is not RVO (Ongpin) or PhilWeb per se. It is the President’s and his government’s opposition to on-line and on-site electronic gaming because of the social ills and decay they foist on our communities as they cater to the more economically vulnerable portion of our population," Pagcor Chairperson Andrea Domingo said in a statement.

"The campaign to correct or stop previous gaming policies that bring about such pernicious social conditions just had to start with PhilWeb, simply because its license had expired," she said.

Domingo said Pagcor would "deal with similar cases involving other parties accordingly."

PhilWeb’s license expired on August 10 leaving 700 of its employees and 5,000 others who run e-Games sites out of work.