The five-year Senate investigation into the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) has disclosed a web of people who used the gambling industry for their own personal gains.
Senator Risa Hontiveros said this as she closed the final hearing on the Senate women, children, family relations, and gender equality’s investigation on the issues and problems brought about by POGOs.
In ending the investigation, Hontiveros, chairperson of the panel, concluded that POGOs “have been revealed to be nothing but a Trojan horse.”
“For five long years, counting our Pastillas investigation, the Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality tried to leave no stone unturned to unravel the many evils brought to our shores by Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators or POGOs- POGOs welcomed with open arms by the administration of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte,” Hontiveros said.
“They have exposed a web of people who used POGOs for their own selfish interests, their own personal gain— all at the expense of the Filipino people. Walang dinala dito ang mga POGO kundi bangungot,” she stressed.
Hontiveros presented a chart which linked Duterte, his former presidential adviser Michael Yang, personalities implicated in the Pharmally scandal, self-confessed Chinese spy She Zhijiang and his alleged recruiter, dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo and her supposed relatives, Cassie Ong, and former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque all together.
She maintained that the objective of the investigation was not to “prove any single individual guilty” but to scrutinize “our very system of laws and policies which allowed these travesties to go unchecked and to fester.”
“Ang nilitis natin dito ay ang katibayan at kasapatan ng ating mga batas para hadlangan ang abuso ng POGO. At ang hatol- nung tinimbang, nakakalungkot at kulang na kulang,” Hontiveros said.
Among the policies that she mentioned were the birth registration processes, immigration procedures, passport and visa applications, procedures for establishing businesses, bank secrecy, and election systems.
“This may be the end of our hearings on POGO, but this is only the beginning of the legislative reforms that we will strive to push, to ensure to every Filipino that there will never be another Alice Guo,” she said.
“Guo Hua Ping, sisiguraduhin ko na hindi ka na makakaulit dito. At matututo ang lahat sa gagawin sa ‘yo,” she added.
During her closing statement, Hontiveros also announced that the Senate’s arrest order against Guo is already quashed.—LDF, GMA Integrated News
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