EDITORIAL - POGO revival

As soon as the government began cracking down on Philippine offshore gaming operators in 2024, law enforcement agencies had warned that POGO employees were going underground and starting smaller operations, mostly disguised as call centers.

Recent raids, however, indicate that the POGOs are expanding beyond the tentative small-scale operations.

POGOs can be relatively easy to detect. For one, they employ an unusually high number of people. For another, they need to bring in a large number of gadgets for use in their operations.

If local government, barangay and police officials conducted regular patrols in their jurisdictions, they should be able to notice such unusual activities. Unless they themselves are protecting the POGOs. This was what emerged when the government went after POGOs in Tarlac linked to then Bamban mayor Alice Guo and in Porac, Pampanga, which led to the dismissal of Jaime Capil as mayor and indictment for graft.

Such connivance cannot be ruled out as law enforcement agencies raid POGOs. In the latest operations on Oct. 2 in two municipalities in Zamboanga Sibugay, 244 foreigners mostly Chinese were apprehended by joint teams from the National Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Immigration and the military.

The raiders recovered from the Casa de Coco Pension House 78 computer monitors, about 3,000 mobile phones, laptops and SIM cards along with technical devices believed used for online scams. That’s a lot of tech equipment for the bed and breakfast in Siay town.

Last month, the NBI had also apprehended over 120 Chinese nationals in a Makati facility styled as a call center but engaged in what the bureau described as a “lust scam” that used explicit videos to blackmail Filipino and foreign victims.

Such activities and other online scams along with other criminal activities including human trafficking, torture, rape, kidnapping and even murder led to the crackdown and eventual total ban on POGOs.

And yet recent raids have shown that the banned operations continue, with hundreds of foreigners still employed.

Have the foreigners been overstaying since the total ban on POGOs, or are they new in the country, entering through a renewed racket in the Bureau of Immigration? Authorities must find out, before the country gains notoriety as a hub for offshore gaming and online scams.