CARMONA, Cavite – Sky Dragon Global Technologies Corp., a Cavite-based business process outsourcing service provider and also authorized by PAGCOR to operate as Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) has agreed to comply with the clearances from the Philippine National Police as part of the requirements for working in the country.
Ryan Sy, it’s General Manager, said they have already started to have all their employees secure clearance thru Cavite Provincial Police Office.
Skydragon is in operation for two months now and employs about 400, 95% of which are Filipinos.
Earlier, PNP Chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin Jr. said this requirement was an offshoot of the meeting they initiated with POGOs amid the rising cases of criminal activities in the country, particularly kidnapping, involving their workers.
Azurin also revealed they are now working with the POGOs to likewise require their workers to present proof they are not wanted for criminal offenses in their respective countries.
Cases of kidnapping in the country have gone up since 2017, most of them involving POGO workers.
The kidnapping of POGO workers usually occurs after the recruited workers would be forced to go home after the salaries and perks that were promised to them are not met after their arrival in the Philippines. This year alone, 27 kidnapping cases involving POGO workers were already recorded by the PNP.
POGO operators would then hire “thugs,” almost all of them Chinese and backed by Filipinos, to force the family to pay ransom in exchange for the release of their relatives, police investigators say.
Based on the PNP reports, the Chinese kidnappers would even resort to violence and torture to compel the victim’s relatives to pay the ransom.
Azurin earlier called for stricter rules that must be observed by POGOs for their workers, as he revealed there was no clear-cut policy since 2017 to check on the background and the status of foreign POGO workers in the Philippines.
He also revealed that the PNP was told before not to dip its finger in POGO matters, except if a crime is already committed.
Azurin also ordered a crackdown on undocumented and overstaying POGO workers in the country and was the first to propose that POGO workers must secure police clearance first before they are allowed to work in the country.
With POGOs now agreeing to the work requirements by government agencies, Azurin expressed confidence that everything about POGO will now be set right and will eventually lead to the end of the involvement of POGO workers in various illegal acts. Roy Tomandao