Traitors

NBI Director Jaime Santiago told the Senate that “When we checked the fingerprints of Guo Hua Ping and compared it with Alice Leal Guo, we found it to be similar. One and the same person.”

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian earlier presented documents of Guo Hua Ping entering the Philippines on Jan. 12, 2003, when she was still 13 years old. The Bamban mayor has presented a birth certificate filed when she was 16 years old.

The NBI director said the bureau’s findings “are conclusive and can stand in court.” Does this mean the Bamban mayor’s birth certificate is fraudulent and that she is a Chinese citizen who managed to get herself elected as a town mayor? Strange as all these may seem, it is apparently quite normal in our country for aliens to get documents that will claim they are Filipino citizens.

Foreigners have been known to enter the country using valid documents obtained through illicit means. Philippine passports, among other government-issued documents, are being peddled by travel agencies to Chinese tourists through a messaging application, Sen. Risa Hontiveros revealed during a Senate inquiry back in March 2020.

“Ino-offer ng Chinese tour agency ang passport ng Republika ng Pilipinas. They offer to process an LTO driving license even using a tourist visa,” Hontiveros said while showing screenshots of a WeChat message. “They will even produce a birth certificate for you,” she added. The senator also claimed that tour agencies were also offering to scrub Chinese nationals’ names from Philippine immigration blacklists, and offer airport releases if they were barred entry. Tour agencies are advertising these services freely. These are criminal services,” said Hontiveros.

With the POGO or online gambling allowed under PAGCOR’s supervision, there has been an influx of Chinese workers to our country. Our law enforcement agencies have been finding out time and again that many Chinese nationals coming into the country using POGO credentials are involved in organized crimes, such as human trafficking, prostitution, kidnapping and fraud.

The editorial of this newspaper last Wednesday reports that the PAOCC task force was able to retrieve video showing horrific scenes of torture in recent raids in an illegal POGO hub in Pampanga, “in one case, a naked, handcuffed man cowered under a bed as he was electrocuted.”

Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, in a House hearing, recalled the case of a Chinese national who secured a birth certificate indicating he is a Filipino, as well as a unified multi-purpose ID and a driver’s license issued by the Land Transportation Office. Barbers, chair of the House committee on dangerous drugs, noted that this Chinese, through his cohorts or the Chinese mafia, “was able to secure a Filipino birth certificate via late registration with certain LGUs.”

“With his forged Filipino birth certificate, he was able to secure a Philippine passport and other government-issued IDs,” Barbers added.

Barbers said some Chinese with forged Filipino IDs reportedly engaged in a huge land acquisition spree in Bulacan, Palawan, Zambales, Isabela and other parts of the country, establishing warehouses and other “business fronts.”

This sounds like a serious national security concern. The Chinese criminal syndicates illegally procuring legitimate Philippine passports for Chinese nationals must be in partnership with Filipinos who have access to legitimate passports or contacts with government agencies involved in registering births and driver’s licenses.

These Filipinos who work with foreign criminal elements to undermine the legitimacy of Philippine official documents are traitors to our country. This is how our national honor is smeared. Foreign criminals know they can buy anything here, from official documents and even police services, making the Philippines their ideal headquarters. Two PNP SAF commandos abandoned their posts in Zamboanga and were caught providing bodyguard services to officials of a POGO company in Ayala Alabang.

These criminal syndicates use illicit cash. No wonder we can’t get out of the anti-money laundering gray list.

Up north, LGUs have allowed Chinese entities to mine black sand which damages shorelines to the detriment of communities. Magnetite or black sand is a rich resource found on the northern coasts of Cagayan and Ilocos. It fetches a premium price in foreign markets as an addition for high-strength concrete and steel.

My colleague, Jarius Bondoc, last month wrote that China “has grabbed a slice of mainland Zambales. There, Chinese miners rule, stealing nickel ore the same way they poach fish. Bribed local officials abet them like present-day Makapili… Through Filipino dummies they have set up five fake ‘minahang bayan’ or small-scale mines… Residents of Sta Cruz cry that the Chinese have denuded the watershed forests and poisoned farmlands, rivers, sea and air. Adjacent Masinloc and Infanta, Pangasinan also suffer.”

Similar reports of a creeping invasion of possibly Chinese syndicates have also been heard from Catanduanes.

Back in 2021, President Duterte ordered all mining operations stopped on Tumbagaan, a small island in Tawi-Tawi whose environment has been “completely devastated” by Chinese companies mining for high-grade nickel ore. Local officials seem permissive of the operations.

Now the PAGCOR chairman claims a former cabinet official had been lobbying for POGO license applicants with dubious backgrounds. Alejandro Tengco also said POGO licensees during the Duterte administration was as high as 298 and is now down to 43 after they weeded out those “ineligible and outright suspicious.”

Looks like our government has lost control. A massive clean-up of Immigration and other law enforcement agencies is needed. It is sad that some of our countrymen are selling our country to foreign criminal groups… traitors in other words.

Poor moral character that permeates society today is why our country is poor and makes us look like a lawless failed state. Many of us put personal interests ahead of the nation. These traitors brazenly selling our country to foreign criminals are confident their misdeeds will go unpunished and be forgotten. They think our government is a joke! BBM should prove them wrong.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco.