Alice Guo (left), Cassandra Ong (Facebook)

Controversial personalities Alice Guo and Cassandra Ong can show everybody their love for the country by telling the truth about Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs). 

This was Senior Deputy Speaker Pampanga 3rd district Rep. Aurelio “Dong” Gonzales Jr.'s appeal to the POGO duo, which has recently been reunited in the Philippines after fleeing abroad. 

“Alice Guo and Cassandra Ong are claiming they are Filipinos. If this is true, they owe it to our country to speak up and reveal all they know about these underground POGOs that flourished during the past administration,” Gonzales said in a statement Sunday, Sept. 8. 

“Tayong mga Filipino, mahal natin ang ating bansa. Kung mga Filipino sila, dapat mahal din nila ang ating bayan,” said the second highest-ranking official at the House of Representatives. 

(We Filipinos love our own country. If they are Filipinos, then they should only love our nation.) 

Gonzales has been an active participant in the House quad-committee (quad-comm) hearings on the interconnected issues of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO), illegal drugs, money laundering, and the extrajudicial killings (EJKs) during the previous Duterte administration's drug war.   

Dismissed Bamban, Tarlac mayor Guo, who is facing numerous charges in connection with POGO activities in her town, was arrested by authorities in Indonesia, where she tried to hide, and repatriated to Manila on Friday. 

She is expected to face the Senate next week to answer questions on the POGO hub in Bamban that the authorities have closed down. 

Ong, on the other hand, is under detention in the House of Representatives. A representative of alleged POGO Lucky South 99, she testified last Wednesday before the last quad-comm hearing.

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Gonzales lamented that the reputation of Pampanga has been tainted by the Porac POGO; the September 2023 confiscation of P3.6-billion worth of shabu in a warehouse in Mexico town, his hometown; and the discovery of P1.3 billion worth of illegal drugs in an abandoned car in Mabalacat City in August of that year. 

“Kawawa ang probinsiya namin (I pity our province), a progressive growth area in Central Luzon. We should be able to recover from this mess but we should know what really happened with the cooperation of vital witnesses like Miss Ong,” he said. 

The House of Representatives will also seek Guo's presence as a resource person during the next quad-comm hearing on Sept. 12.