Philippine government officially issues esports players athlete licenses

Esports continues its advancement towards global recognition with today’s news, whereas high-level esports players in the Philippines will be now recognized as athletes underneath the country’s existing law.

On July 19, Philippine Dota 2 players from TNC Pro Team and Execration, teams competing in this year’s The International 7, were invited to visit the Games and Amusements Board, the governmental bureau that oversees the regulation of all professional sports in the country, to receive under the guidance of GAB Chairman Abraham Kahlil B. Mithra their athletic licenses that will give them official recognition under the law as professional athletes.

The teams will get to compete in the world’s largest Dota 2 tournament without any concern about visa issues that have plagued the teams in the past. In the short , the license will help ease the players’ struggles in getting visas to LAN events in other countries, a problem that concerned esports players in the region previously.

“Hopefully, this will hasten the process and remove the stress and uncertainty of visa applications,” Julius Mariano, Twitch’s partnerships head in the country, said. Mariano was one of a key group of people who brokered the meeting between the GAB and the players. Execration missed out on last year’s Boston Major because the team failed to secure visas for any of its players. Before that, TNC Pro Team and Execration almost had skipped the 2016 The International before being granted last-minute visas for the event.

For the moment, the athletic licenses for the Dota 2 players going to Seattle still follow the provisions set by Presidential Decree No. 871, the executive decree that places basketball and other professional sporting endeavors under the Games and Amusements Board. “Eventually, in the very near future, we’ll have more specific, responsive, in-depth, and relevant supervision and regulation for esports” .