EDITORIAL — More POGO hubs

It would seem that some illegal activities just won’t die.

Just last March 14, the Bureau of Immigration and National Bureau of Investigation arrested 49 foreigners engaged in Philippine offshore and gaming operator (POGO) online scamming operations in a commercial building along Macapagal Avenue in Pasay City.

The foreigners were working without appropriate visas and two of them had criminal records; a 29-year-old Bangladeshi involved in illegal recruitment and a 25-year-old Pakistani suspected of financial fraud.

Then just a few days later on March 19, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission stumbled upon a POGO operation in a building along Ayala Avenue in Makati City while looking for a wanted man.

A total of 188 people were arrested; 135 foreigners while the rest were Filipinos. Many of the foreigners didn’t have work visas, while one of them had five different passports.

While that POGO operation allegedly didn’t engage in scamming, PAOCC said they were running a gambling site without the proper permits.

It’s well into March, way past beyond last year’s deadline for POGOs to stop operating. So why are there still such operations?

Someone needs to look into why these activities continue.

There are questions we want answered. Are the foreigners arrested for these activities new here or are they holdovers from previously-busted POGO operations? If they are new here how are they getting in very easily? Are some of them still able to enter --or perhaps being allowed to enter-- using fake passports?

How come it is so easy to set up such operations? How are Filipinos duped into working for such companies?

But here’s the most important question of all: Are people in positions of power, clout, and influence protecting these operations?

We have to ask because it would seem that these operations don’t seem to get stamped out once and for all, kind of like illegal drugs and other such criminal enterprises.

We suspect it won’t be long before another POGO hub will be raided, and that will raise the same questions we want asked.