EDITORIAL — The last days of POGOs?

Yesterday marked the start of the revocation of licenses for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), this in keeping with the order of the president to totally eliminate POGO operations in the country by the end of the year.

Heck, it’s about time we got rid of this. It’s sad that the previous administration, which institutionalized POGOS, couldn’t see their disadvantages past the profits they were turning over to the government. But even these profits remain doubtful because until now there are questions if they were giving the government’s fair share.

The greatest ills brought by some POGOs are two-fold; for one they were a cover for criminal activities like extortion, scamming, kidnapping, and trafficking, victimizing both foreigners and Filipinos alike, for another they were being used to fund even more criminal activities.

By eliminating POGOs we hurt criminal syndicates by hitting them where it hurts most.

But what we are afraid of is that POGO operations might just morph into something else. Since it’s not likely that some criminal syndicates will just pull up their stakes and leave, not after everything they have “invested” here in terms of infrastructure, both the structural and criminal, as well as the connections they have established.

To evolve and survive, POGOs might pretend to be something else entirely yet be the same thing, along with the criminal activities that come with them. The same animal dressed in another animal’s skin.

And because here in the Philippines anyone can enter if they bribe the right people, anyone can set up a business if they bribe the right people, and anyone can get away with anything if they bribe the right people. They can even leave without anyone knowing about it if they bribe the right people.

We should be wary that POGO might just come back or even stay, posing as something else.