But earlier, I was surprised when I opened the app to gamble because it now required me to take a selfie before proceeding. I’m thinking this might be part of the government’s move to ensure minors can’t gamble. Do you think this is a good first step?
Is this with Gcash? it's normal that they will ask us with a selfie verification whenever they want to. Or usually, they will ask this when you change your phone/device or your login/number details have already expired on the app. So by the time that you open and login to them, that's what they will ask us at most times. Even before the hot issue about online gambling and ewallet apps have exploded, Gcash has been doing that way of verifying users. I think I was able to do this step maybe 3-4 times and just the same face, of course mine. 
This is what I also thought. With the recent ban of the Philippine government on online casinos, their reveneu must have really gone down a lot since they lost many users or gamblers.
While it's a good measure to avoid the young ages to get into gambling, I don't think they will implement it during this time where they need people to come back playing on their platform. I also suspect it was from gcash since I also experience what you've said. It usually occurs when there is a frequent transaction on a user's gcash account.