WITH all due respect to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., all was not right with the selfies that law enforcement officials took with a smiling fugitive — Alice Guo, the dismissed mayor of Bamban, Tarlac — following her arrest in Indonesia on September 4. In one selfie, a smiling Guo flashes peace signs as Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos and Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Rommel Marbil — also smiling — flank her. In another, agents of the National Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Immigration pose with the fugitive mayor after she was turned over to them by the Indonesian police. Guo, who faces human trafficking and money laundering charges in connection with her alleged role in the shady online gambling hub operating in her hometown, had led the authorities on a wild goose chase through Southeast Asia after she repeatedly defied the Senate, then fled the country in July. The President shrugged off the outrage-sparking selfies when they circulated on social media, saying this was just "part of the new culture ... in the selfie capital of the world." But the selfies are objectionable, not because they reflect poor judgment and taste, but because the smiles belie the sinister and sordid world of Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs) that is steeped in forced labor, kidnapping, torture and murder. So far, 10 Chinese have accused the owners of Lucky South 99 of trafficking and forcing them to work at the illegal POGO in Porac, Pampanga, from where they were rescued during a raid in June. The complainants said they were kidnapped, held against their will and coerced into becoming workers of Lucky South 99, one of two POGO hubs in Central Luzon at the center of a deepening criminal investigation. At a press briefing, prosecutor Ramoncito Ocampo said one of the Chinese was lent P450,000 and gambled for three nights playing mahjong. When he couldn't repay the debt, he was taken directly to Lucky South to work it off. Authorities rescued more than 800 Filipinos and foreigners from the Bamban POGO in March and 158 Chinese, Vietnamese and Malaysians from the Porac POGO in June. Both had been raided on suspicion of illegal activities, such as crypto and love scams. Nor are these POGO activities limited to those raided in Tarlac and Pampanga. The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) estimated in June there were more than 300 of them operating illegally in the country, and recent raids in Laos and even as far away as the Isle of Man indicate that these operations have global reach. In July, the House Committees on Public Order and Safety and on Games and Amusements viewed videos provided by the PAOCC of POGO workers being tortured — punched or beaten with metal bats and sticks and even electrocuted using tasers — while they were detained at different facilities. PAOCC spokesman Winston John Casio said the workers were tortured if they were caught trying to escape. The ordeal of four victims was documented on separate videos, although Casio did not specify if these were from the POGO hubs in Bamban or Porac. The first video showed a Chinese woman being repeatedly hit in the face and body, even after she fell to the floor. The second showed a Chinese man bound to a bed and being tortured with a taser. In the third, another man was also being tasered on his nipples and genitalia, making him scream in pain. And the last featured a Malaysian man crouched on the floor, crying and whimpering in pain as he was repeatedly hit with a bat. PAOCC was unable to save this man, as he is already dead, Casio said. The videos were so disturbing that one lawmaker from Lanao asked the committees to stop showing them, as he felt they had already seen enough. It is these faces of agony we need to keep in mind when we consider the serious law and order and security problems that POGOs pose. President Marcos was absolutely correct when he ordered them banned despite the objections of the agency regulating them and some lawmakers who seemed to believe that the criminality accompanying POGOs was an acceptable price to pay for an extra source of government revenue. Now, the government needs to swiftly and effectively carry out the President's order to end all POGOs by year's end.
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