The Philippine Amusement Gaming Corp. (PAGCOR) earned the ire of some senators on Tuesday, May 30 after it admitted responsibility for the glaring lapses in the implementation of their regulations on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs).
Sen. Risa Hontiveros presides over Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality inquiry, Tuesday, May 30, 2023 on illegal activities involving foreign nationals, including human trafficking and racketeering, via scam hubs in various points in the country.
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian scored PAGCOR for being “corrupt and not doing its job” especially after one of its official admitted that the state gaming regulatory agency already has an offshore gaming regulatory manual governing the accreditation for “POGO hubs” and yet was unable to detect the more than 1,000 human trafficking victims—a mix of foreign and Filipino nationals—inside the Colorful and Leap Group Company operating inside the Clark Sun Valley hub.
The individuals, who were rescued during a May 4 police raid, claimed they were forced to work in fraudulent “cyber-enabled” platforms such as cryptocurrency.
Jessa Mariz Fernandez, assistant vice president for Offshore Gaming and Licensing Department of PAGCOR, told the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality, that the agency’s inspectors conducts an inspection twice a week at the two accredited POGO hubs—the Sun Valley Hub Corp. located in Mabalacat, Pampanga; and the First Orient International Ventures Corp. at the Island Cove in Kawit, Cavite.
But despite this, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian noted PAGCOR failed to monitor the victims of human trafficking inside Colorful and Leap Company, that anti-human trafficking operatives themselves were able to rescue after receiving a tip.
Equally preposterous, Gatchalian said, was PAGCOR’s inability to compel POGO owners to comply with the regulations asked by the agency which is to ensure the presence of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Bureau of Immigration (BI), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and law enforcement agencies particularly the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) within their hubs.
Gatchalian noted it has been four years or since 2019, when they were given provisional licenses, and yet they have yet to comply with the rules set by PAGCOR.
“You inspect two times a week and there are only two POGO hubs in the whole Philippines. So how come your inspectors were not aware about these 1,100 plus human trafficking victims?” Gatchalian pointed out to Fernandez.
“Alam nyo Pagcor, pinagloloko niyo kami eh (You have been fooling us) to be honest about it. That’s why we are all in this problem. Hindi niyo ginagawa yung trabaho ninyo eh (You have not been doing your job),” he reiterated.
“How come the police were able to detect them? But PAGCOR which issued the (provisional) license, saw nothing? Obviously, your inspectors were corrupted,” Gatchalian lamented.
Gatchalian said this human trafficking incident within the Philippines is bringing “international shame to us.”
“The Philippines is becoming a scam hub. Hindi POGO hub (not POGO hub), but a scam hub. POGO being used as a front for scams. POGOs being used as a front for human trafficking because PAGCOR is not doing its job.
“That’s the bottomline. Pinaglololoko niyo kami. Imposible na kung twice a week ang inspection niyo, imposibleng hindi niyo makita iyan (You have been fooling us. It’s impossible not to see these victims when you are conducting your inspection twice). Just put the PNP, NBI there, wala na tayong problema diyan (We have no problem there). Why take four years of inaction?” he further lashed out.
“That’s why I don't believe in this. Kahit anong sabihin ninyo (whatever you say), you are corrupt. Whatever concept you want to develop, even if that’s a POGO hub, it’s not going to work because PAGCOR is corrupt,” the senator reiterated.
Also during the hearing, the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking confirmed during the Senate women’s panel, that scam hubs do hide under a legal cover.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros, chairman of the Senate panel leading the investigation into the human trafficking activities in the Clark hub, echoed Gatchalian’s call for PAGCOR to “shape up.”
“PAGCOR as the regulator of POGOs, should be actively looking into the companies that they allow to operate in the country. Otherwise, it is, in effect, exacerbating this growing and disturbing humanitarian crisis in our region,” Hontiveros also lamented.
Hontiveros, who conducted an ocular inspection of the Colorful and Leap Group offices, noted that most of the victim-survivors who shared their ordeal, turned out to be similar to the love scam modus in Myanmar and Cambodia that the panel earlier investigated.
“They would find scam victims usually from the US, through dating apps like Tinder, Facebook Dating, Bumble and Hinge,” she said.
“If POGOs are allowed to continue business as usual, the crypto scam and human trafficking operations will also grow at a frightening rate our government will never be able to overtake,” Hontiveros warned.
Both Hontiveros and Gatchalian are calling for the total closure of POGO operations in the Philippines.