President Rodrigo Duterte justified his decision not to stop e-sabong, or online cockfighting, activities on Tuesday by claiming that they are legal and that the government gets millions from them on a monthly basis.

President Rodrigo Duterte stated on Thursday that he is willing to investigate the ongoing operation of online cockfighting, or “e-sabong,” and may even ban it if the negative impacts on the public are confirmed.

“Pero itong e-sabong, pero ngayon I don’t know if it is true and I don’t know if it is really something which is marami raw mga Pilipino ang naubusan, nabenta ‘yung bahay, mga estudyante nagsali na, kasi ayan eh pero kung totoo yan before I go, parahin ko,”(“But this e-sabong, but now I don’t know if it’s true and I don’t know if it’s really something which is many Filipinos have run out, the house has been sold, students have joined, because that’s it eh but if that’s true before I go, I’ll stop,”) he mentioned this during his statement at the joint meeting of the National and Regional Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict in Lapu-Lapu City.

“Let us study if it is true, it’s getting to be a very serious problem for the Filipinos. Pati raw yung mga asawa magpusta ganoon, tignan natin pag-aralan muna natin then kung totoo ‘yan hintuin ko ‘yan (Even the wives are also betting, let’s see and study first then if that’s true I’ll stop that),” he also stated.

Duterte previously rejected calls to cease operations, claiming that it was bringing in up to P640 million per month for the government.