By Hannah Torregoza Senator Richard Gordon said on Sunday he finds it necessary for the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to explain to the Senate blue ribbon committee its failure to clamp down on Chinese nationals who are engaged in money laundering activities in the Philippines. Senator Richard Gordon (JANSEN ROMERO / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO) In an interview over GMANews TV, Gordon said he recently received information that at least 60 Chinese nationals managed to slip in cold cash amounting to millions of dollars in the country, which he said is “really suspicious.” Gordon warned such huge amount of money could be used for irregular purposes, particularly to fund private armies or so-called enemies of the state. “May (There’s) $3-million, $4-million…million ha, cash. At inaamin nila (and they admit it),” Gordon said. “Dapat i-report iyan. Nagtataka ako, ang tagal-tagal nang nangyayari ‘yun, walang umaaksyon sa AMLC dahil suspicious (That should have been reported. I am wondering, it’s been happening since then, no one in the AMLC is taking action when its suspicious),” he pointed out. Gordon earlier vowed to start investigating the alleged anomalies and criminal activities associated with the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGO) industry after Sen. Risa Hontiveros wraps up her probe into the POGO-related prostitution and sex trafficking activities by Chinese nationals. Hontiveros, chair of the Senate committee on women and children, earlier exposed the “pastillas” money-making scheme in the Bureau of Immigration (BI), which allegedly involved Chinese nationals giving grease money to immigration officials to facilitate the easy entry of POGO workers in the Philippines. A frontline immigration officer, Allison Chiong, had testified before Hontiveros’ panel and confirmed the existence of the alleged modus. Due to the panel’s investigation, President Duterte sacked some BI officials involved in the ‘pastillas’ racket but spared BI chief Jaime Morente. Gordon, however, said there is a need to dig deeper into the issue especially since the number of Chinese nationals known to be part of the POGO industry are coming in to the country are still increasing. “With such huge amount of fund… you can create a private army. You can even fund the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG). You can even fund enemies of the state, or engage in real estate. That’s why our real estate values right now are in a mess,” Gordon pointed out. Other than that, Gordon said the Chinese nationals could also have been using gambling as an excuse to launder money. “They may make it appear they gambled, they won, and then they will deposit it in a bank. Now that will make it legal. They can now use that money and send it to Hong Kong, and they will just issue a check,” he pointed out. If such money indeed would not be used for illegal purposes, Gordon said it could have been brought in through bank transfer for transparency. But Gordon said these Chinese nationals must know someone, a higher authority, whom they can tap so they won’t have to report such earnings. “Eto, dahil nakatimbre sila diyan, maaaring may nakatimbre sa higher authority, 'Huwag nyo nang i-report, ipapakita namin na deklara, para kapag pumutok, dineklara namin, (Because they were monitoring, they tapped a higher authority, telling ‘don’t report it, we will show we declared it, so when something happens, we can say we just declared it),” Gordon pointed out. Once the blue ribbon committee starts its probe, Gordon assured his panel will cover all aspects of POGO-related problems, including labor and immigration issues. “Not just money-laundering. We will tackle also the issues related to crimes and corruption (in POGO),” Gordon said.