EDITORIAL - Out there, in here

It was casually mentioned during a Senate hearing a few months ago that there might be a Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) hub operating in Cebu. That declaration didn’t raise much of a peep from the authorities and local government units here.

But the other day what some people suspected was confirmed after operatives of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission and National Bureau of Investigation-7, together with the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, Bureau of Immigration, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Department of Social Welfare and Development, and Lapu-Lapu City Police Office raided a POGO operation in a hotel in Barangay Agus, Lapu-Lapu City.

According to a report in this newspaper, over a hundred foreign nationals, including Chinese, Indonesians, and Burmese, as well as five Filipino managers were found inside the facility.

The same report says most of the foreigners were those who escaped a POGO hub in Pampanga just before it was raided by authorities last month.

This isn’t the first time a big-time, organized criminal enterprise was found in Cebu. If you can recall, in September 24, 2004 authorities raided and dismantled what was then considered the largest methamphetamine lab in Southeast Asia in a warehouse in Barangay Umapad, Mandaue City.

In the case of the “mega shabu lab” it was a long surveillance that led to the raid on it. In the case of the POGO hub the authorities got a lucky break as it was the escape of two Indonesians being forced to work in the hub that led to the discovery of the operation.

This shows just how easy it can be to set up a criminal enterprise and operate it for quite some time under the radar. This should also get us wondering how many such operations are actually in Cebu, hidden in private resorts or warehouses.

There may be more POGOs and scam farms out there --or perhaps we should say in here.

We congratulate the authorities for their find but at the same time hope they are up to the challenge of finding more, if there are. The situation might be complicated by the fact that Cebu is a major attraction to foreign tourists and students, hence they can be found almost anywhere and anytime.