Roque, wife face PAOCC probe following arrest of fugitive

MANILA, Philippines —  Former presidential spokesman Harry Roque and his wife Mylah will be among those investigated following the arrest of a fugitive in a house owned by a company they have interests in, the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) said yesterday.

PAOCC Undersecretary Gilbert Cruz, in an interview with “Storycon” on One News, said owners of the corporation that owns the raided house in Tuba, Benguet may face charges for harboring a criminal.

Two foreigners were arrested during the raid conducted by
 PAOCC on the house owned by PH2 Corp., which Roque confirmed to have interests in.

One of those arrested was later reported to have been on Interpol’s red notice list over a financial fraud case in China.

“Former spokesperson Harry Roque… will be part of our investigation being conducted by PAOCC,” Cruz said.

“He said that there is a lessee and lessor contract between (the company) and those who were arrested, so that has to be explained,” he added.

Lack of knowledge of the fugitive’s status is not an excuse for anyone to be excluded from their investigation, Cruz said. “A case has to be filed… explain it before the court,” he noted.

In an earlier statement, Roque said officers and stockholders of PH2 Corp. will fully cooperate with the investigation.

“We apologize specifically to the Chinese authorities that a person whom we did not know to be a fugitive in their country took residence in the leased property,” he said.

Roque said PH2 entered into a lease contract on Jan. 15 with Wan Yun, who identified herself as a single Chinese national.

“Unfortunately, we were unaware that Ms. Wan Yun has a male partner who has evaded arrest in China. We will never allow our properties to be leased by any Filipino or foreign fugitive from justice,” he added.

Roque said the lease contract was terminated in July.

Criminal past

Sen. Risa Hontiveros yesterday bared the criminal records of the Chinese fugitive who was apprehended in the Benguet house linked to Roque.

Hontiveros shared the Interpol Red Notice stating that Sun Liming is a fugitive in China, where he faces charges of illegally taking in public deposits “in the name of Internet P2P business without the approval of national financial regulator.”

Sun, through his Limin Net Co., took seven billion yuan of public deposits from over 180,000 victims “through network marketing… resulting in the loss of CNY 1.16 billion to more than 17,000 victims.”

“The illegal funds were used for paying back part of the principal and interest, commissions for salesmen and the running of the company. Sun Liming was the main culprit… His illegal profits stood at about CNY 10 million, which were mainly used for his personal consumption,” the Interpol notice stated.

Hontiveros said Sun hid behind a Cambodian name when he took shelter in the house in Tuba, Benguet leased to a company linked to Roque.

Roque earlier told a Senate panel that while he had lived in that house, he was only linked to it under heavy corporate layers.

The house is leased to PH2 Corp. where he is a nominal shareholder and it is wholly owned by Biancham Corp. where Roque is an incorporator.

“Sun Liming is a big-time fugitive according to the Interpol Red Notice. It really is baffling that he ended up living — of all houses in the country — in the house linked to Harry Roque,” Hontiveros said.

Sun is an IT manager of the illegal POGO hub in Porac, Pampanga — Lucky South 99 — where Roque allegedly served as legal counsel, Hontiveros said.

“It appears this fugitive and Roque run in the same circles,” Hontiveros noted.

Roque denied lawyering for Lucky South 99, saying he only counseled the POGO hub’s service provider Whirlwind Corp.

Hontiveros vowed to continue digging up the deep roots of POGO and its cohorts in the country.

“While a ban was already announced, we in the Senate need to craft measures to ensure that this industry never comes back again,” Hontiveros said.

Expanded manhunt

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has expanded its manhunt for suspended Bamban Mayor Alice Guo, wherein all police units are on deck to find her.

PNP chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil has instructed all police operatives on the manhunt for Guo, who was cited in contempt and ordered arrested by the Senate for snubbing hearings on illegal POGO hubs in the country.

PNP public information officer Col. Jean Fajardo urged people who may have information on Guo’s whereabouts to report it to the police.

Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Jinggoy Estrada earlier warned the PNP and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that their 2025 budget could be affected if Guo is not apprehended.

Fajardo said they are taking it as a challenge to intensify efforts to apprehend Guo.

The PNP has yet to receive a request from the House of Representatives for the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s economic adviser Michael Yang.

Yang was ordered arrested by the House dangerous drugs committee for refusing to comply with a summons to shed light on his alleged involvement in a P3.6-billion drug sting in Pampanga in 2023.

Fajardo said the PNP’s role is only limited to providing security to the House sergeant-at-arms who is tasked with implementing the arrest order against Yang.

POGO drug ties

Lawmakers on Wednesday unraveled the alleged drug ties among illegal Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) after the name of Duterte’s economic adviser’s brother cropped up.

Rep. Dan Fernandez, chair of the House committee on public order and safety, presented a detailed matrix linking several Chinese nationals, including Yang, to alleged illegal POGO activities and drug operations.

Fernandez revealed that Yang’s brother, Hong Jiang Yang, is an “incorporator” of Paili State Group Corp., along with Rose Nono Lin and “Hong Ming Yang,” believed to be another alias of Michael Yang.

Fernandez then drew attention to the Anti-Money Laundering Council’s findings that Guo, who had 36 bank accounts, was involved in bank transactions amounting to a whopping P29 billion.

The administration stalwart related further that links between Yang’s brother and Guo were established after his transactions with the mayor — who is being investigated by the Senate in relation to illegal POGOs and for faking her Filipino citizenship — totaling about P3.3 billion.

The origin and destination of all these funds “remain unclear” to this day.“Come to think of it, Mayor Guo’s transactions alone reached P29 billion in her 36 accounts. How much more are the other bank accounts of these other personalities?” Fernandez asked, emphasizing the scale of the billions of pesos in financial transactions among suspected drug traffickers.

Michael Yang, now the subject of a manhunt after he was ordered arrested and detained by the House committee on dangerous drugs led by Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, was implicated in the P3.6-billion drug haul in Mexico, Pampanga in 2023.

Fernandez, whose panel joined that of Cavite Rep. Antonio Ferrer’s committee on games and amusement, questioned the relationship between these Chinese nationals and POGO operations, emphasizing the need to uncover the truth behind these extensive financial movements.

He highlighted the involvement of other persons like Wesley Guo and Cassandra Li Ong, whose connections to the Bamban mayor are still under investigation.

“The instruction to us is to ferret out the truth and find out this linkage of the involvement of drugs,” he stressed.

Joint efforts of various House panel chairpersons, among them Reps. Ferrer, Romeo Acop, Bienvenido Abante and Joseph Stephen Paduano, have the common objective of uncovering the truth behind the nexus and web of intricate connections between drugs and POGO operations.

Acop heads the House committee on transportation, Abante chairs the justice and human rights committee and Paduano heads the committee on public accounts.

Election offense

President Marcos was right when he ordered a total ban on the existence of POGOs in the Philippines, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile said on Wednesday.

“POGO is a money laundering operation,” the former Senate president told reporters on the sidelines of the House panel hearing on POGO operations.

“If I were the President, I agree with what he said, I will kick out POGOs in this country,” he added.

Enrile said he never thought of POGOs when they were still deliberating on what is now Republic Act 7922, or the Cagayan Special Economic Zone.

“When I revised the Pagcor (Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.) charter, POGO was never in my mind or the mind of any legislator,” he explained, noting that Duterte was “ill-advised” when he issued Executive Order 13 allowing POGOs to operate in the country.

Enrile’s daughter Katrina, who is now the administrator of the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority, told lawmakers that CEZA has no POGOs inside the facility, which means there are no POGO-related crimes inside.

The fact-finding panel of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has recommended filing an election offense against suspended Bamban Mayor Guo.

In an interview, Comelec Chairman George Garcia said that the fact-finding body of its law department has recommended the filing of a motu proprio election offense case against Guo for allegedly committing material misrepresentation in her Certificate of Candidacy (COC) during the 2022 elections.

Quoting the panel’s recommendation, Garcia said, “The Department finds sufficient factual basis to proceed with the preliminary investigation and, thus, respectfully recommends that this Department be directed to file a motu proprio complaint and conduct a preliminary investigation against Mayor Alice Guo/Guo Hua Ping for material misrepresentation.”

Garcia said the panel found enough basis to conclude that the owners of the fingerprints from the Bureau of Immigration (BI), NBI and the Comelec are “one and the same person.”

According to the BI, a certain Guo Hua Ping entered the Philippines on January 12, 2003 when she was 13 years old. The NBI found that the fingerprints of Mayor Guo matched that of Guo Hua Ping.

3 workers deported

Meanwhile, the BI deported 33 Chinese nationals, including an infant, who were illegal POGO workers recently intercepted in Pasay City by the PAOCC.

The BI said that 33 Chinese POGO workers boarded a Philippine Airlines flight to Xiamen, China yesterday before noon at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1, escorted by the PAOCC, the police Aviation Security Group and officials of the Chinese embassy in Manila. — Daphne Galvez, Marc Jayson Cayabyab, Delon Porcalla, Rhodina Villanueva, Rudy Santos, Emmanuel Tupas