Too late the hero?

As a Tsinoy, I am very disturbed by the videos going around social media of Chinese-looking men shooting and beating each other up, and reports of kidnappings related to gambling and POGO operations, supposedly targeting “Chinese females mostly,” according to a report in Hong Kong.

Aside from calling on authorities to “protect the rights and interests” of its citizens in the country, the Chinese embassy should be more pro-active and do more in stopping these nefarious activities done by their nationals.

Some years back, there were numerous incidents of Koreans targeting fellow Koreans in kidnapping and extortion activities. The Korean embassy vigorously cooperated with authorities and the problem did not escalate and in fact was quickly resolved.

In the name of increased revenues we threw our doors wide open to Chinese nationals, welcoming gamblers and drug smugglers and all sorts of characters without visa, without any kind of screening. In their own country gambling is not allowed, so we said they can do it here. See where that got us.

Now we’re scrambling to contain the scourge, even threatening to close down the POGOs. As we often say, too late the hero. – Melissa Chua, Quezon City