POGO Operations in the Philippines: A case of violating Philippine laws

PHILIPPINES - Report 20 Sep 2024 by Diwa Guinigundo and Wilhelmina Manalac

For the past several months, Filipinos have been closely monitoring what is now considered as an extraordinary case involving a Chinese national who seemed to have succeeded in securing Filipino citizenship, conducting business in the northern province of Tarlac and managing to win an elective position as mayor of one of its towns. She is Alice Leal Guo, whose family’s Special Investors Resident Visa application documents placed her birthplace at Fujian, China. Ms Guo later admitted that both her biological parents are Chinese nationals, Jian Zhong Guo and Lin Wen Yi. The Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation confirmed that her fingerprints matched those of a Chinese national, Guo Hua Ping. The case involves possible links to a recently-raided Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) hub in the same province under which umbrella illegal gambling and other criminal activities were committed, including financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, torture and even murder.

The more serious issue is the undeniable involvement of those in authority.

Guo could not have entered the Philippines without the complicity of Philippine immigration authorities. She could not have produced her Filipino birth certificate without the knowledge of the civil registrar and the statistics authorities. She could not have run for public office if the country’s election authorities had conducted simple due diligence. She could not have sustained her POGO and alleged illegal activities if law enforcers did not turn a blind eye. She could not have escaped from the Philippines in July without official intervention.

It is no longer surprising when non-Filipinos have the gall to disrespect the country’s laws, as Filipinos themselves, public officials in fact, have been observed to have the habit of setting aside the law and just treating it as an elephant in the room, and in many cases, too, as a doormat.

Now read on...

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