IN an ideal world, Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) shall not co-exist with Bagong Pilipinas. The way the government tells it, Bagong Pilipinas represents the new norms, the modern institutions and structures, and even the core values of a nation on the cusp of greatness. Under Bagong Pilipinas, there is theoretically no room for criminality, deviancy or corruption. It is the mission of Bagong Pilipinas to guard our dynamism-infused nation from being sullied by criminality and corruption.

Even China, with which the Philippines has been clashing on many territorial and sovereignty issues, agrees. Beijing has categorically requested the Philippine government to ban POGOs because it regards them, at their core, as enterprises run by thugs and grifters who are engaged in something that is absolutely banned in China. This is the country of origin of people running and managing POGOs, the country that has compiled files on key offshore gaming operators in the Philippines.

Filipino ownership of POGOs is a sham, as the Filipino incorporators of the POGO in Bamban, Tarlac — all public market vendors whose identities were stolen for registration purposes — have proven.

China said it would closely cooperate with the Philippine government to shut the POGOs for good.

If POGOs are the worst under the new values of Bagong Pilipinas, then why are these online gambling firms — supposedly for the Chinese, by the Chinese and of the Chinese — still operating here, abetted and protected by well-connected Filipino fixers, convicted scammers and lawyers of dubious reputation? (Some of the papers uncovered during the search of a POGO in Porac, Pampanga, were about a Duterte-era lawyer whose travel documents were what Karl Marx once called a "tragedy and a farce.")

That is the $64-million question that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s government has to answer, and explanations are imperative. Under the values and norms of Bagong Pilipinas, entities such as POGOs are untenable, the direct antitheses of the new values. Under all benchmarks and reckoning, POGOs should be automatically out of Bagong Pilipinas. Their continued presence and operations in the country make a mockery of the entire value ecosystem of Bagong Pilipinas.

Is the unfathomable and unexplainable embrace of POGOs due to the P20-billion contribution of these China-outlawed entities to the Philippine economy, as claimed by the chief POGO panderer, the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.? Those advocating for a total POGO ban have raised this counterargument. We are supposed to be Asia's rising economic star. Our economy is big and resilient enough to forgo the P20 billion from POGOs. And is the P20 billion worth the global embarrassment over hosting POGOs, worth the crime and mayhem that automatically come to countries hosting them?

Any claim of societal change and transformation under Bagong Pilipinas is belied and mocked by the POGOs' continued presence in the country. Are we that cheap to trade Bagong Pilipinas' avowed mission of doing things the new way with P20 billion?

Suspended Bamban Mayor Alice Guo was a collateral discovery of vigilant anti-crime operatives going after human-trafficking victims, mostly foreigners, recruited for POGO work. During a raid at a Bamban-based POGO suspected of duping and forcing foreign workers to work under duress and under terrible conditions, Guo's former part-ownership of the land hosting that POGO was discovered. Then, many mysterious things unraveled as well in the Senate hearings that tried to establish the links between her and that POGO.

Guo, the mayor of that town in the heart of Central Luzon, did not have the usual history and bonafide of normal politicians in Pampanga-Tarlac areas where one's life story has historically been part of campaign spiels. No birth and hospital records to speak of. No educational history. Acquired her "citizenship" papers at 17. Her registered mother, supposedly a Filipina maid whom Guo claimed had a relationship with her Chinese father, never existed in the birth registry of the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). The PSA has vowed to cancel her certificate of live birth after hard evidence showed that she is not the Alice Leal Guo she claims to be but Guo Hua Ping, a Chinese citizen.

A "farm girl" with a McLaren and helicopter and real wealth who cannot simply answer the questions about her life. Evidence shows that Guo faked her citizenship papers and acquired her birthright and mayorship through spurious documents and a fraudulent personal history.

The institutions of Bagong Pilipinas are taking their own sweet time on her case, perhaps due to the inherent weakness of the institutions and the fallibility of the people running them. To their credit, two senators, Risa Hontiveros and Sherwin Gatchalian, are doggedly pursuing every angle in the Guo document falsification story, perhaps inspired by the recent "guilty" verdict that former United States president Donald Trump got from a jury in New York City over the falsification of business records.

Guo, with her battery of lawyers and this real sense that the institutions of Bagong Pilipinas are weak and incapable of rendering justice on her case, proudly insists on her "innocence" with the accompanying pleas for "fairness."

Many can't blame her for her chutzpah. She gamed the electoral system with her incredulous claim of citizenship, protected the POGO in Bamban during her mayorship and, based on her statement of assets, liabilities and net worth, piled up wealth despite the total absence of educational and professional history.

And she definitely patrons in high places, as photos of her deep connections to the powerful show.