EDITORIAL - Unresolved questions

It’s been months since the government gained custody of Alice Guo and Cassandra Li Ong, who are currently being held without bail. The government, however, has yet to complete the picture of how the two women managed to leave the country amid a high-profile investigation of their possible involvement in criminal activities linked to Philippine offshore gaming operations.

A total ban on POGOs and their local copycat, the internet gaming licensee, took effect on Jan. 1. Immigration officers are reportedly hunting down an estimated 11,000 foreign POGO workers who are now considered illegal aliens. A number of these foreigners could have already left the country undetected, through the same route that Guo claimed she and her supposed sister Shiela took in July last year.

Guo told congressional probes that they first boarded a yacht in the city of Manila. Then they transferred to a larger vessel that seemed to be a fishing boat. Finally they transferred to a smaller blue or green boat that brought them to Malaysia.

Officials of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission have said there are so many private ports across the country from where fugitives can exit. PAOCC executive director Gilbert Cruz says that in one province alone, there are about 300 such private ports that are largely free to have vessels come and go. The porousness of the country’s coastal areas has allowed the smuggling of a wide range of contraband and facilitated the escape even of high-profile convicted murderers and crime suspects. Are there measures being undertaken to regulate the operation of such ports or at least improve policing of the country’s coastal waters?

Instead of leaving the country, many of those foreign POGO workers may be in the process of obtaining fraudulent Philippine citizenship. To this day, it also remains unclear how Guo and her supposed siblings obtained what probers say are fake Philippine birth certificates. Until this question is answered, there could be more foreigners paying bribes to obtain Philippine citizenship fraudulently.

Guo, who won the race for mayor of Bamban, Tarlac in 2022, has insisted that her Philippine citizenship is genuine. Probers in Congress and law enforcement agencies say otherwise. Beyond prosecuting Guo for various offenses, the government must address the weaknesses that allowed her to become a town mayor and then to leave the country undetected.