POGOs run guerrilla scam operations

SOME illegal Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) have broken up into smaller groups and relocated to the Visayas and Mindanao, where they now operate "guerrilla scam operations." The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) made the revelation during a public hearing led by Sen. Risa Hontiveros, chairman of the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality. PAOCC Director Winnie Quidato on Tuesday said former POGOs have broken down into smaller groups and pretended to be call centers or business processing operators (BPOs). Quidato said these illegal POGOs shifted their operation outside Metro Manila because PAOCC is active in Luzon. "We found that most of the POGOs are now in several areas of the Visayas and even in Mindanao. They are now there," he said when Hontiveros asked him about the scope of their operations. He noted that the Bureau of Immigration reminded foreign POGO workers that by now, they should have already downgraded their visas to tourist visas following the directive in July of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. banning POGOs. "They should have said goodbye to their loved ones in the Philippines, sold their condos (condominium units), their vehicles, and settled their debts," Quidato said in Filipino. "But so far, what we've noticed was that they simply transfer to other places." "We noticed an increasing number of former POGO workers who booked flights to the Visayas area," he said. "Some of them changed their [corporate] name before the Securities and Exchange Commission and became BPOs," Quidato said. "We are coordinating with other [concerned] agencies on how we are going to go about the solving of this problem," he said. Hontiveros has wrapped up her investigation into the illegal activities of some POGOs, including human trafficking, online scams and even alleged espionage. "I have come to the end of a very long road. For five long years, counting our 'pastillas' investigation, the committee tried to leave no stone unturned to unravel the many evils brought to our shores by POGOs welcomed with open arms by the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte," she said. "They have now been revealed to be nothing but a Trojan horse. 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," she said. POGOs simply "brought nightmares" to the country, the senator said in Filipino. She said that despite the many heinous crimes unearthed by the committee, including large-scale scamming, corruption, kidnapping, torture, prostitution, and human trafficking, "our objective has never been to prove any single individual guilty." Addressing dismissed Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Guo alias Guo Hua Ping, Hontiveros said, "This committee has unmasked you as a Chinese national mocking our Filipino identity to amass wealth and commit crimes against true Filipinos." "But I leave your fate, Ms. Guo, up to our courts, and I look forward to the day you face justice. I am happy that you are not present here [at the inquiry] because you're now facing a judge," she said. Hontiveros added, "We abide by the rule of law in this country, and these hearings were never a trial for your crimes. The same goes for your co-conspirators and bad actors." "What was on trial here, however, was our very system of laws and policies, which allowed these travesties to go unchecked and to fester," she said. "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," Hontiveros said.