Interpol red notice issued vs Cassandra Ong

MANILA, Philippines — The International Police Organization (Interpol) has issued a red notice against Cassandra Li Ong and Ronelyn Baterna.

Ong is the representative for Lucky South 99, a Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) that allegedly forced vulnerable victims into working as customer service representatives and kidnapped online players who failed to pay their debts. Baterna was the firm's corporate secretary.

Ong faces qualified human trafficking charges before the Angeles City Regional Trial Court. She is the alleged business associate of dismissed Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Guo who has been convicted of qualified human trafficking.

She was one of the key figures questioned and briefly detained during a Senate inquiry last year led by Sen. Risa Hontiveros into POGOs.

During the Senate’s plenary deliberations on the Department of Justice’s proposed 2026 budget, it was revealed that Ong had already been released from the Correctional Institution for Women, and was reportedly last tracked in Japan earlier this year.

Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) spokesman Winston Casio said they were tracking Ong and Baterna following the issuance of their arrest warrants, but they were under the radar.

“We couldn’t trace Ong because her social media was locked,” Casio told radio dzBB yesterday, adding that Baterna’s online account “disappeared.”

Even Ong’s lawyer, Ferdinand Topacio, said he hasn’t been in touch with his client “for some time now.”

Topacio, a spokesman for former president Rodrigo Duterte’s PDP-Laban party, accused the government of using Ong as a tool to divert the public’s attention from the flood control scandal.

Casio said the commission believes Ong and Baterna are hiding together.

During the quad comm hearings last year, Ong and Baterna were seen rolling eyes at each other as lawmakers grilled them over illicit operations inside Lucky South 99.

In a statement, the Philippine National Police said it is stepping up efforts to bring Ong home.

Red notice sought for Roque

In a related development, the Philippines has requested Interpol to issue a red notice against former presidential spokesman Harry Roque, who is facing an arrest warrant for qualified human trafficking.

The development was confirmed yesterday by Casio, who added that the Philippine Center on Transnational Crime made the request.

The Angeles City Regional Trial Court Branch 118 issued an arrest warrant against Roque, Ong and others on May 8 for qualified human trafficking, a non-bailable offense.

Roque was drawn into the case for serving as a lawyer for Whirlwind Corp., a real estate firm that leased a 10-hectare plot in Porac, Pampanga, to Lucky South 99.

The prosecutors said that Roque was either aware of or willfully ignored the alleged unlawful nature of Lucky South 99’s operations.

Casio added that besides Roque’s arrest warrant, Interpol may use his sedition case as a basis to issue a red notice.

The National Bureau of Investigation filed the sedition case in connection with a video allegedly showing President Marcos snorting cocaine.

However, the PAOCC spokesman admitted that the red notice request may take time because Roque is seeking asylum in the Netherlands, citing political persecution in the Philippines.

“The Interpol’s usual timeline is between two and three months,” Casio told reporters. “I am not privy to how France will release a red notice, but I think the asylum case will have to be resolved first.”