Your soul for POGO?

“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it just may be a duck”

– Walter Reuther, labor leader

The ongoing campaign for the total and immediate ban of POGOs or offshore gaming businesses in the Philippines is apparently being opposed not just by the foreign operators themselves but by public relations operators who are proposing a 2- to 3-year phase out of said businesses instead of their immediate closure.

The curious thing is, coincidence or not, we now have a chorus of legislators – Congressman Joey Salceda along with Senators JV Ejercito, Bato Dela Rosa and Raffy Tulfo – all signifying their opposition to the immediate closure of POGOs just days apart of each other and are suggesting the very same suggestion of a 2- to 3-year phase out. More than anything, it’s all about the timing and clearly, there is a move to sell the 2- to 3-year phase out as a compromise.

Senator Ejercito was even quoted in a news item calling the Senate committee report as “plastic and ka-plastikan” or hypocritical since criminality had long been associated with casinos before POGOs, but no one howled against it. The good senator apparently does not recall the opposition that the church, civil society and media put up, but were all ignored or “cancelled” even before the term Cancel Culture was a thing.

While Sen. Ejercito is entitled to his opinion and position, it is unfortunate if the senator did indeed use the term “ka-plastikan” in reference to a committee report, considering it was a joint effort arrived at by the honorable members of the committee investigating POGOs and, more importantly, by his fellow senators.

Personally, what’s more unfortunate is that senators who have spent a good part of their careers dealing with criminality and its victims – namely Sen. Bato dela Rosa and Sen. Raffy Tulfo – would reduce the issue and opposition to POGO as a transactional concern for government to collect more taxes or simplify POGOs as another form of gambling. Despite their feet of clay, I respect these two senators. Having said that, I hope and pray that they realize what is at stake and who is at risk.

POGOs have become platforms or engines for serious criminal activities. They are no longer the single business of online gambling. From legalized gambling they have expanded to illegal recruitment and the more serious crimes of human trafficking, murder and forced prostitution. I had to write in the word “forced” because some people try to split hairs between “willing” and “forced” prostitution.

Prostitution is one of the worst things to inflict on a human being! Not only is it modern-day slavery, it is a daily violation of their body, soul and mind. There is no justification for holding someone against their will in order to collect the processing fee and airline ticket of a foreigner who you misled into believing there was a great job waiting for them in the Philippines, only to end up as slaves subjected to physical punishment if not torture.

There is no justification for illegally detaining a gambling addict, beating him up every day and threatening his family to pay up or receive pieces of their relative via courier pouch. Let us not compartmentalize crimes into gambling-related issues or potential losses of tax revenues. There are even those who turn a blind eye to or ignore all the arguments against POGOs simply because they own buildings rented by POGO companies who apparently pay so much more than regular tenants. Among them are high government officials in the past and present administration.

Ironically, I just remembered the ongoing Senate investigation regarding the physical abuse and torture that was experienced by Elvira Vergara, a housemaid, and a young 17-year-old boy at the hands of their employers France and Pablo Ruiz. The Senate committee chaired by Sen. Francis Tolentino spared no effort, even making the couple undergo a lie detector test to verify their testimony and claim of innocence.

Ever since senators first conducted hearings and investigations, so many resource persons, victims and complainants have testified against POGO. The Chinese government has issued numerous requests and protests to the Philippine government for hosting POGOs to the detriment of Chinese citizens becoming addicted to gambling.

In a previous column, I wrote about a documentary I watched on Channel News Asia on how recruiters were going out to provinces in Vietnam and other countries recruiting young men and women, housing them in training facilities to learn some English, providing passports, plane tickets and teaching them how to lie to immigration officers at NAIA.

Upon arrival in the Philippines, they were bused to a fortified “camp” in Cavite where they became virtual prisoners at a heavily guarded POGO camp. Aside from exposing the illegal recruiters and their trans-national crimes, the documentary unavoidably showed the Philippine government’s “complicity” by playing willing host, legalizing and legitimizing POGOs that have gone beyond the reach of law enforcers.

Congressman Joey Salceda recently said that the abuses of POGOs in the Philippines are easily addressed by simple law enforcement. In his perfect world perhaps, but in the real world that is the Philippines, law enforcement agencies have been starved and intentionally denied proper funding while Congress gives away billions of pesos for confidential funds to political allies.

If all this is still not enough to convince legislators not to sell their souls by supporting POGOs in the Philippines, I humbly request them to watch a movie now showing in Metro Manila entitled “Sound of Freedom.” It is a true story about a US federal agent who wages a war against human traffickers. Hopefully, it might stir righteousness among our senators in the face of the moral crisis and temptations posed by POGOs.

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