POGO: Gone for good?

Showing political will is rare among our leaders. It may be too early to praise BBM for his decision to scrap POGOs. We will see by the end of the year if there are no ifs. His man in Pagcor seems to be vacillating and will probably try to save some POGOs under a new name. We shall see.

Shortly after BBM declared his tough stance on POGOs, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission did two big raids on POGO hubs in Tarlac and Pampanga and scored big time. We found out that the Bamban mayor may have been a fake Filipino and reports from the commission seem to indicate her connection with the POGOs in her backyard. Then there was this other raid in Pampanga that reportedly revealed criminal tentacles attached to the POGO there.

The vigilance of Senators Risa Hontiveros and Win Gatchalian started to unravel the story of the Bamban mayor, who was subsequently stripped of her position. She eventually managed to slip out of the country together with an alleged sister and the manager of one of the POGO operations. They were all eventually arrested by the Indonesian police and brought back to the country. We won this one with the help of the Indonesians.

POGOs have proven to be troublesome for the country from the start. Duterte steadfastly supported having them supposedly because of the big money POGOs bring. Pagcor is charging them fees to operate and the BIR has belatedly started to charge them some taxes. But the reason explaining the stickiness of POGOs is simple: money seemed to be flowing freely to buy political support. Corruption is obvious at many levels of our government.

There have been suspicions that POGOs have funded our elections, one way or another. We know that POGOs have been buying police protection, confirmed when a house in Ayala Alabang was raided and PNP SAF officers supposedly assigned in Mindanao were found serving as bodyguards for Chinese POGO executives.

Now that PAOCTF and NBI have uncovered a thriving racket selling late registration birth certificates and apparently genuine Philippine passports and drivers’ licenses, a national security risk has been revealed. We are being infiltrated by a potential enemy and some Filipino Judases are facilitating it for cash.

Duterte knew early on that POGOs are evil but he kept them anyway. The Anti-POGO Act of 2020, with its clear definition of purpose, made POGO’s social evils starkly clear. But Duterte kept it from being passed.

“It is therefore declared by the State that ‘Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations’ conducted within the Philippines have increasingly become a social menace and a source of unimaginable corruption. It has made a mockery of our anti-money laundering, immigration and tax laws. It has been a source of untold criminal offences and heinous crimes related to the conduct of such operations…”

Oddly enough, BBM, the President who challenged China in the West Philippine Sea, is the one who decided to get rid of POGOs, a Chinese demand that the China-loving Duterte ignored. Duterte even related that he told Xi Jinping to understand why we need POGOs to beef up our government’s financial position. He said Xi understood but I heard otherwise. The reason Duterte didn’t get all the promised Chinese economic assistance was that he denied Xi’s request to close down POGOs. The Cambodians were more obedient to China by closing theirs.

Gambling has been illegal in China since the time of Mao. Anyone who helps a Chinese citizen gamble abroad faces up to 10 years in jail. It was reported that the POGO workers we deported to China will be detained upon arrival by China’s Public Security Bureau. Chinese POGO workers would be blacklisted from getting a passport or given bad social credit scores which could mean losing certain privileges and will be prohibited from exiting China.

Jaime FlorCruz, Philippine ambassador to China has said “All things considered, the POGO ban is good for Philippine-China relations. It gives us a chance to cooperate on something that is mutually beneficial. It allows us to do something together for public good. Our two sides have been cooperating in intelligence exchange, and in identification and repatriation of Chinese citizens implicated in crimes.”

Alvin Camba, writing for madeinchinajournal.com, revealed that the biggest beneficiaries of the POGO entry into the country were our giant property companies.

“Chinese nationals have become the biggest international buyers of real estate, accounting for large proportions of the international sales of leading firms—e.g. 34 percent of Ayala Land, 10 percent of SM Prime Holdings, 60 percent of DMWAI and 50 percent of DMCI in 2017 (Bloomberg, 2018). In 2018, Ayala Land and SM Prime Holdings sold 90 and 50 percent of their units to Chinese nationals or firms respectively (Cliff Venzon writing for asia.nikkei.com 2020).

“The number of new BPOs and the sector’s contribution to job creation have started to decrease because these multinational companies are getting outbid by online gambling firms (Venzon & Turton 2019). Significantly, while BPOs took 65 percent of the office space in Manila in 2016, the following year the share had shrunk to 39 percent. According to my interviewees in the call center sector, this has resulted in a thousand fewer projected jobs for Filipinos in the BPO industry.

“As a planning manager in one of the Philippines’ largest real estate companies told me, instead of building condominium units for call centers or housing, major real estate companies have started to tailor more offices for online gambling firms.”

Hmm… The moguls of Makati can’t put a holier-than-thou stance on POGOs, given how they profited hugely from them. Hopefully, they don’t exert pressure to reduce BBM’s total ban to a partial ban because a total departure will leave their properties empty and hurt their bottom lines.

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