THE Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) on Saturday said it was considering proposing the gradual phaseout of Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) in the country following intensified calls to ban them due to illegal activities.
PAOCC spokesman Winston Casio said this as Philippine law enforcement agencies’ raid on several POGO hubs led to the arrest of some suspects, including Chinese citizens.
In a Saturday news forum in Quezon City, Casio said the government should try phasing out POGOs gradually before going for a total ban.
“So, perhaps before we direct ourselves to a discussion on a total ban, we could probably revisit discussions of a phaseout,” he said.
The PAOCC official said the phaseout, if ever implemented, would pave the way for POGOs’ elimination in the Philippines.
“A gradual phasing out maybe, a transitional mechanism that would lead to the total eradication of these scam farms,” he said.
Casio said only 42 POGOs operated legally in the Philippines, 41 of which were in Metro Manila while the other was in Kawit, Cavite.
On the other hand, 298 POGO licenses from different parts of the country were canceled by the government for illegally operating. However, some of them still operate underground.
“So if there are POGOs operating in Northern Luzon, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Bicol all the way to Mindanao and Central Visayas, it means all of them are illegal,” Casio said.
“A good number of those 298 are still operating. What does that mean? That even if you totally banned them, you don’t necessarily take them out of the picture,” he added.
Calls for the government to get rid of POGOs intensified due to illegal activities linked to the industry.
In the same briefing, Casio said PAOCC had leads on the sources of an alleged “leakage” of a plan to raid the POGO hub in Porac, Pampanga.
“We already gathered leads these past three days,” he said.
Casio floated the possibility of an apparent leak when its operation in the Porac POGO hub resulted only in the rescue of 158 foreigners, which were far fewer than what was believed to be the 1,000 working in the offshore gaming.
The PAOCC official said that on Monday, the anti-crime body would coordinate with other agencies involved in the POGO raid to disclose the leads they have.
“So they can track where these leads go,” Casio said. “We will give them the leads; then we will allow the agencies to do the investigation.”
Amid reports that bodies of nine foreigners were found in different parts of Pampanga, Casio said that PAOCC requested the Pampanga Police District to furnish the anti-crime body with a copy of the report.
He said the PAOCC was closely following the recent development as “I got three calls already, one from the Malaysian Embassy, another from China, and another from Vietnam.”
“We would like to find out … as one of the embassies said, how the Pampanga police were able to arrive at the conclusion that x number of bodies were actually Chinese nationals,” Casio said.
“According to [one] embassy, they have not received any communication from the Pampanga police in relation to those bodies. Remember, Chinese nationals can look like Singaporeans, Malaysians and even Taiwanese,” he added.
Meanwhile, Casio said the PAOCC would only consider making suspended Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice a state witness if she would point to someone “higher” than her.
“Any state witness, for that matter, will have to be the least guilty in the entire conspiratorial chain in the commission of a crime,” Casio said.
“We wouldn’t be open to that discussion until and unless we get higher on the food chain in relation to the crime that this group has committed,” he added.
But Casio said that “the way we appreciate the evidence on hand of what we have now so far as of this time, she is not the least guilty.”
Guo is at the center of the ongoing investigation into the raided POGO hub in Bamban over alleged illegal activities such as human trafficking, torture, and scamming.
The Bamban mayor was allegedly involved in the raided POGO hub after several documents showed that she was personally involved in the processing of documents for its operations.
Guo is also suspected of being part of a criminal syndicate operated by Chinese citizens.
Guo was suspended in June after the Department of the Interior and Local Government filed graft charges against her with the Office of the Ombudsman.
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