Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers
VETERAN lawmaker Robert Ace Barbers urges PAGCOR Chairman Alejandro Tengco to disclose the names of the legitimate POGOs given licenses and accreditation by the regulatory agency.
At the same time, Barbers also asked Tengco to cooperate with Congress and make public all POGOs operating without licenses.
Barbers made the call in light of Tengco’s pronouncement that a former Cabinet member lobbied and used his influence for the licensing of POGOs during the past administration.
“POGOs, whether licensed, legitimate or illegal are nothing but fronts for criminal activities. Ranging from money laundering, drug trafficking, human trafficking, protecting criminal syndicates engaged in murders, kidnapping, torture, rape and up to engaging in POGO politics, name it and surely it is all there. POGO is the one stop shop of criminal activities,” Barbers said.
“If we continue to allow their operations, we will all be consumed by its corrupt and criminal system until it becomes the accepted norm and our society becomes worthless. POGOs are a curse that have to be taken out from our system”, Barbers added.
The solon also warned that the trend is fast taking a twist. Citizens from ASEAN countries like Vietnamese, Malaysians and Indonesians are now flooding our country to replace Chinese workers in these POGOs. He said these people can enter the country without any visa, their being ASEAN member nations. He warned the Bureau of Immigration against giving working visas to these people in exchange for bribes.
“We have seen the unabated influx of Chinese who were given student and retirees visas by the Bureau of Immigration and the Philippine Retirement Authority. We are not done yet with our investigations so I am warning these agencies not to extend working visas to these new arrivals that are being used to replace Chinese employees in the POGOs. I promise you, we will come out with our committee report recommending the appropriate actions when we are done with our investigations,” Barbers said.
“The same is true with PAGCOR. If it is proven that all those raided POGOs engaged in criminal activities have been licensed, or that other licensed POGOs being protected and sponsored by some influential and notorious characters are found to be havens for criminal activities, we will make sure that those negligent, incompetent and corrupt will be punished,” Barbers said.
