ASEAN HEADLINE-COURTS & CRIME | MANILA: Business groups back total ban on POGOs

MANILA, Philippines — Business groups yesterday expressed support for a total ban on Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGO), which are being linked to illegal activities in the country.

“We, the undersigned business groups, fully support the recommendation of DOF (Department of Finance) Secretary Ralph Recto and NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan for a total ban on POGOs,” the groups said in a statement yesterday.

The groups include the Makati Business Club, Alyansa Agrikultura, Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, Foundation for Economic Freedom, Institute of Corporate Directors, Justice Reform Initiative, Management Association of the Philippines and the UP (University of the Philippines) School of Economics Alumni Association.

Citing NEDA data, the groups said POGO investments’ contribution to the Philippine economy is minimal at 0.2 percent of gross domestic product last year.

The groups said there also social costs, with recent hearings illustrating that POGOs have been linked to involvement in crimes such as human trafficking, kidnapping and money laundering, among others.

Citing data from the Philippine National Police, the groups said 55 percent of the 31 cases of kidnappings in 2022 were POGO-related.

Earlier, Balisacan said the government, in his view, should be focusing on generating high quality jobs and not gambling jobs. Recto said a recommendation to totally ban POGOs has been sent to President Marcos.

The business groups added that government should help re-skill Filipino workers who may lose their jobs due to the ban and enable industries affected by POGOs to find alternative uses for their assets.

Policy on POGOs

It will be best if Marcos will declare his policy toward POGOs in the country so as to make a definitive line between law-abiding POGOs and illegal ones, a key official of the House of Representatives said yesterday.

Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Salceda, who chairs the House ways and means committee, suggested that the Chief Executive can do so by simply stating that the country’s law must be followed, when he delivers his third State of the Nation Address before joint Congress on Monday.

“It’s simple – implement the law. Follow the law. Enforce the law. If you enforce the law, naturally, you will catch violators,” Salceda said.

“If you hear news of violations, that’s because PAGCOR (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.) and law enforcement are catching them. Let the law work,” he added.

The Bicolano lawmaker noted that there is a definite line between POGOs that toe the line, and those that do not.

He is against the proposal to totally ban or shut down POGOs mainly because of the enormous taxes that the government generates from them, but he said going after the ones that engage in illegal activities would be ideal.

Citing data from the gaming licensing agency, Salceda said last year’s collections from POGOs improved to P5.1 billion from just 87 licensees – a huge contrast to the P2.99 billion from the year before, which came from 158 licensees.

PAGCOR had renamed POGOs to internet gaming licensees or IGLs.

With this, PAGCOR collected about 71 percent more revenues for last year with 45 percent fewer licensees.

Salceda also noted that the POGO industry has been getting fewer Chinese and more Filipinos in terms of direct and indirect hires.

“If they are not engaged in illegal activities, and if they pay their taxes, then licensees should be allowed to continue operating. My stance has always been this: close down the bad ones, as you would in any industry,” he recommended.

The problem with POGOs, according to the lawmaker, is that the government was able to collect more taxes with only fewer of them, compared to those that mushroomed during the time of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

“We are cutting out the weeds so that the flowers can grow,” he added, noting that since PAGCOR started cracking the whip under the current administration, “tax and regulatory fee collections have increased dramatically from fewer licensees.”

“The difference is starker on the tax side. At the height of POGOs in 2019, there were 298 licensees that paid P6.42 billion in total taxes. Now, with just 87 licensees, internet gaming licensees paid P10.3 billion in taxes,” he said.

“If you close down the whole sector, good players and bad, you put to waste all the efforts of the Marcos administration to crack down on the bad players,” he warned, cautioning against blanket closure.

Lookout bulletin

The names Alice Guo and Guo Hua Ping have both been placed in the Immigration Lookout Bulletin (ILBO), the Bureau of Immigration said yesterday.

“Both Alice Guo and Guo Hua Ping’s names are included in the ILBO,” BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said after Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian stated that suspended Bamban Mayor Alice Guo might have left the country using her Chinese passport.

But he also said that information from the BI reportedly showed that the beleaguered mayor is still in the country.

When asked if Guo might have left the country through the south, using the “backdoor,” or if she had taken advantage of the country’s porous borders, Sandoval said that question should be directed to the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and the Philippine Navy.

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) earlier confirmed that Mayor Guo and Guo Hua Ping are the same person.

Last July 13, the Senate issued warrants of arrest against Guo and seven others, namely Sheila Leal Guo, Wesley Leal Guo, Jian Zhong Guo, Seimen Guo and her suspected mother Wen Yi Lin, as well as Dennis Cunanan and Nancy Gamo. The respondents have been called to appear at the next committee hearing set on July 29.

The warrant against Guo was issued after she failed to attend the hearing called by the Senate committee on women, children, family relations and gender equality.

Gamo, the accountant of Mayor Guo, had been arrested. She will stay in the Senate until the resumption of the Senate’s inquiry into the raided POGO hub in Bamban, Tarlac.

Torture

Four foreign nationals, mostly Chinese, rescued from POGO hubs in Pampanga and Tarlac appeared at yesterday’s inquiry of two House panels to prove the torture activities inside online gambling facilities.

A Filipina who was rescued from a scamming facility in Myanmar by the Presidential Anti-organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) was also presented during the joint hearing of the House panels on public order and security and human rights.

“We cannot allow these rogue POGO operators to persist. It is imperative that we identify and unmask the masterminds and protectors behind these operations so they can be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” House Speaker Martin Romualdez underscored.

“We presented the Myanmar (case) to provide context to the committee that the problem of scam farm is not limited to the Philippines but an inter-Asian problem,” PAOCC spokesman Wilson Casio said, adding that influx of foreigners working in POGOs started in 2017 and peaked in 2019.

PAOCC also showed video clips of five POGO workers undergoing torture at the hands of Chinese nationals inside the facilities. This included the video of a Malaysian national who was found dead last year.

The first video showed a Chinese woman being hit by pipes in the head and back. The second video showed a Chinese man tied to the foot of a double-decker bed while his hands were tased, and the third video showed a naked Chinese man whose genitalia were tased by two men.

One of the rescued workers, a Malaysian who identified himself as Dylan, told the panel he was invited for dinner by a friend in Bamban because it was Chinese New Year. But he was, instead, sold to a POGO hub in Bamban for P300,000.

Dylan was told by POGO that he would be released if he pays his “debt” or work for them for 18 months without pay. He suffered minor beating when he asked for his release on his sixth month at the said facility.

On the other hand, the Filipina woman told the panel that she was encouraged to work in Myanmar by her own relative as an encoder. She, however, ended up working in a facility engaged in love scams and investment scamming through chat. The victim also experienced being tortured when she asked to go home.

Fake certificates

Also in Congress, Lanao del Sur Rep. Adiong filed a resolution seeking an inquiry into the proliferation of fictitious and falsified birth certificates and passports issued to foreign nationals.

In House Resolution No. 1802, Adiong proposed the probe be conducted jointly by the committees on local government and justice.

The resolution stated that the proliferation of these documents “posts a serious threat to national security.”

The measure was filed in the aftermath of the NBI’s revelation that almost 200 allegedly falsified birth certificates were issued to mostly Chinese nationals by the civil registry in Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur.

Cover for illegal acts

Licenses issued by the government to POGOs, particularly those run by the Chinese, were being used as fronts for illegal activities, former Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio said.

Carpio pointed out that PAGCOR should not have issued the licenses to Chinese-run POGO firms in the first place because their websites are not accessible to China. He said that China declared it “never allows any kind of gambling.”

“Have you heard about the ‘great firewall of China?’ The online POGOs claiming to operate in China are blocked. They get license from PAGCOR saying they operate in China but they are blocked,” Carpio said during the Kapihan sa Manila Bay media forum yesterday.

Carpio said the POGO firms run by Mainland Chinese could have used PAGCOR licenses as “cover only so they can have buildings, operation with computers, but cannot actually bring online gaming to China because they are blocked.”

“So what are they doing? They are scamming, internet phishing and scamming,” he said.

Carpio also said he hoped President Marcos would announce a declaration against Chinese-run POGO firms.

“It is probably good if he can announce he is against the rules of PAGCOR issuing licenses on POGO that cater to the Mainland Chinese market,” he said when asked what he wanted to hear on the upcoming State of the Nation Address next week, which would be Marcos’ third of his six-year presidency.

Carpio was among the alumni of the UP College of Law who recently called on the President to order the cancellation of all POGOs serving clients from mainland China.

PAGCOR should not have issued licenses to Chinese POGO firms since online gambling websites are blocked in China where gambling is prohibited, he explained.

“Just cancel those licenses. We are just fooling ourselves,” he concluded. – Evelyn Macairan, Sheila Crisostomo, Ghio Ong

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