Congress continues to unravel the web of secrets behind Philippine Overseas Gaming Operators (POGOs), their deep connections in government agencies, and the illegal activities they helped fund during the Duterte Administration.
On Tuesday, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian vowed to challenge the intelligence funds of the country’s law enforcement agencies following their failure to prevent the escape of dismissed Bamban Mayor Alice Guo or Guo Hua Ping, and her cohorts.
“There was indeed a failure of intelligence within our law enforcement agencies,” the senator told reporters.
“Once we deliberate on their budgets for 2025, I will definitely ask these agencies how their intelligence funds are being spent and how they build an efficient intelligence network,” he added.
Gatchalian said the intelligence community should have kept tabs on Guo after her last appearance at a Senate hearing on May 22.
“They freely transferred from different places and even reached a seaport,” the Ways and Means Committee chair noted.
“What happened to the network created by [our law] enforcement agencies? Whether there was collusion or a failure of intelligence, there should be accountability on this issue,” Gatchalian asked referencing the testimony of “Shiela Guo,” of how they managed to move around Luzon apparently undetected by local intelligence.
The senator also criticized the snail’s pace process of filing charges against Alice Guo and her cohorts in establishing illegal POGO hubs.
He pointed out that had the Senate and the House of Representatives not issued arrest orders, there would have been no basis for bringing in Alice’s purported sister Shiela, and POGO executive Katherine Cassandra Ong back to the country.
At the Lower House, lawmakers are not surprised that the Duterte administration could afford to offer monetary rewards to police officers for every suspected drug personality they manage to execute given the amount of money paid by POGOs.
The alleged government-sanctioned murders are claimed to have led to the deaths of as many as 30,000 Filipinos.
“In just three hearings, the Quad Comm inquiry has exposed an intricate and expansive network of smuggling and trafficking in dangerous drugs, illegal Philippine offshore gambling operators or POGOs and illegal gambling activities like jueteng that flourished during the Duterte presidency,” said Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante, Jr., one of the consolidated panel’s co-chairs.
“These POGO and gambling activities are evils by themselves, but what is disturbing is that the funds from these illegal enterprises were channeled to fund incentives intended to reward law enforcement for eliminating their targets––even if this resulted in the wanton and widespread violation of human rights,” he said citing the revelations of whistleblowers.
At the most recent Quad Comm hearing, witness Police Lt. Col. Jovie Espenido told lawmakers that Duterte and the Philippine National Police, under its then chief and now Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, set a daily quota for policemen to “neutralize” 50 to 200 targets in their supposed war on drugs.
When asked by panel members to explain what “neutralize” meant, Espenido said it was understood by policemen to mean the killing of suspects.
According to Espenido, the reward system gave implementers P20,000 for each “kill.”
The incentive scheme was supposedly funded by money from illegal drugs, POGOs, jueteng, and other illegal gambling activities, as well as the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office’s (PCSO) small-town lottery projects.
Espenido alleged that funds were funneled through the former president’s chief aide and now Senator Bong Go.
Two other witnesses, confessed killers Leopoldo Tan Jr. and Andy Magdadaro, testified that they executed Chinese drug lords inside the Davao prison in 2016 on the orders of Duterte himself, which were relayed through senior police officers.
They said the prison warden, Superintendent Gerardo Padilla, even bragged that he received a phone call from Duterte supposedly congratulating him for “a job well done” after they stabbed to death the three Chinese inmates.
Abante reiterated his call for Dela Rosa, Go and Duterte––to attend the Quad Comm hearings to air their side on the issues that have been unearthed by the inquiry.
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