Says Chinese networking alarming
Some Chinese syndicates involved in the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) industry are reportedly working with local criminals, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said.
“This is truly frightening because they (POGOs) are now working with local crime syndicates. So these Chinese syndicates now have connections with local syndicates,” Gatchalian said in an interview with TeleRadyo on Thursday.
“I was frightened, terrified, because it meant that POGOs’ tentacles were getting deeper,” added the senator who filed a bill last month to ban POGOs amid the surge in crimes related to the industry.
The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission, for its part, said nearly 100 of the 402 canceled POGO hubs are still operating.
PAOCC spokesperson Winston John Casio added it would take the agency about five weeks for case buildup and two months for operation against a single POGO hub.
“To be honest, at the rate we are going, I don’t think we can end this problem unless there is a deeper and stronger policy against these scam farms,” he said.
Casio also disclosed there may have been an information leak on their recent raid of an alleged POGO hub in Porac, Pampanga where more than 100 foreigners, mostly Chinese nationals, were detained.
He said they expected to catch about 1,000 foreigners in the said operation.
Gatchalian said this showed that POGO criminals have “people” not just in enforcement agencies but also in the judiciary.
“Apparently when the PAOCC filed a search warrant, someone tipped off the operators. They also know the moves to expand their network, and this is proof that they already have people in places to tip them off,” the senator said.
Gatchalian said during the Senate’s executive session on Wednesday, senators appealed to national security agencies to recommend the banning of POGOs to President Marcos.
Senator Risa Hontiveros also urged the National Security Council to recommend declaring POGOs as a national security threat to Mr. Marcos.
“I call on the President to ban this POGO – don’t only look at one side only, at the revenues generated – but the whole thing that is destroying our society,” Gatchalian said.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said POGOs can be banned even without declaring it a national security threat.
“We don’t even need to go that far and involve national security,” Pimentel said, adding that allowing POGOs is “a simply bad and wrong policy.”