JUSTICE Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla yesterday said the Department of Justice (DOJ) is eyeing the filing of charges before the Supreme Court (SC) against trial court judges who ordered the release of foreign nationals employed in a Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) facility in Las Piñas City that was raided by authorities on June 27.
Remulla said the Bureau of Immigration, an attached agency of the DOJ, will spearhead the filing of the charges against the judges of four Las Piñas regional trial courts.
“Four of the courts in Las Piñas City have granted habeas corpus petitions and I want to tell you that I have instructed the BI to file the necessary charges against the said judges who willingly, or in gross ignorance of the law, granted these petitions without any further collatilla,” Remulla said.
He said any order for release should always come with an accompanying collatilla, or condition, stating that individuals can be freed unless there are other lawful causes for their continued detention.
“In that way, they (judges) are ignoring the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Immigration of the Department of Justice with regards to illegal acts of aliens in the country. So, we are filing cases against the judges to find out if there is plain ignorance of the law in what they did,” Remulla said.
Authorities detained more than 2,700 individuals after the June 27 raid of a POGO hub at the Hong Tai compound in Las Piñas City, the majority of whom were Filipinos. The other workers included an estimated 600 Chinese, 180 Vietnamese, 140 Indonesians and 130 Malaysians.
Many of the Filipino workers have already been released by the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group.
Remulla said the habeas corpus petitions handled by the four Las Piñas judges involved some 600 foreign POGO workers, who have all been released on recognizance of their lawyers, meaning they are released without posting bail but are placed under the custody of their lawyer or a qualified member of the community.
“Many of them were granted. One court refused to grant. That would be five, but one refused to grant the petition. It’s not about who they are but what they did,’ Remulla said.
Asked where the cases will be filed, he said it will be lodged before the Supreme Court.
“It will be filed before the Supreme Court. It’s gross ignorance of the law, administrative cases,” he said.
The habeas corpus petitions, including one with the Court of Appeals, were filed weeks after the foreign workers remained detained at the Hong Tai compound after the raid.
The CA Tenth Division, in a decision dated July 28, has also granted a similar plea by four foreigners after finding out that the PNP-ACG operatives failed to present search warrants during the raid. It said that the workers’ continued detention in the compound can no longer be justified under the concept of “protective custody.”
The CA also noted that the four did not give their consent to the authorities for their continued detention as trafficked persons as required under the Expanded Trafficking in Persons Act of 2022.
The appellate court also noted that they are not in the BI’s hold departure list and blacklist and that they do not have any derogatory records.
Asked about the exclusion of the CA justices in the planned court charges, Remulla explained that unlike the Las Piñas court rulings, the appellate court’s decision had a collatilla.
“The CA also granted the habeas corpus petition but with the collatilla – unless they are being held for other lawful causes. That is what should be included in the Las Piñas decisions but here, there seems to be an ignorance of that matter. The courts should not step into issues where the sovereignty of the country is involved,” he said.
Remulla previously criticized the PNP-ACG raid for allegedly not coordinating the raid with the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT).
In a related development, Remulla said around 28, 000 registered Subscriber Identity Modules or SIM cards recovered in a raid on another POGO facility last week in Pasay City could have been used in online scams.
Aside from the SIM cards, authorities also seized hundreds of phones and other devices allegedly being used for fraudulent activities.
Papers containing what seems to be scripts for love scams and devices for text blasts were also found in the hub.
“The SIM Card Registration Act is supposed to ensure that all the owners are verifiable and that SIM cards are not used for unlawful purposes. But the presence of 28, 000 SIM cards is, in itself, questionable already,” Remulla said.
“We will ask telecom companies to help us in our case build up as we examine the records and examine the equipment that we found and the evidence that we found to be of assistance to us against those who perpetrated scam using these SIM cards and other ways,” he added.
He said the DOJ is looking at whether the case is already covered by the SIM Card Registration Act or if there are changes to the law that need to be implemented to give it more teeth.
He said that among the violations that the DOJ is looking into are spoofing a registered SIM card and misrepresentation.
Under the law, spoofing refers “to the act of transmitting misleading or inaccurate information about the source of the phone call or text message, with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value.”
It carries a penalty of six years imprisonment or a fine of P200,000, while providing fictitious identities or fraudulent identification documents to register a SIM card comes with a penalty ranging from six months to two years in prison and/or a fine ranging from P100,000 to P300,000.
Remulla said the DOJ will go after whoever is the registered owner of the seized SIM cards in what could be the first prosecution under the SIM Card Registration Act.
“The owners of the SIM cards used in the scams have to be charged properly. It’s possible that they’re going to be the first ones charged under the SIM Registration Act,” he said.
The SIM Registration Act was the first piece of legislation signed by President Marcos Jr. in October last year.
Remulla said around 600 workers were initially held by authorities during the raid but only 91 Filipinos and 20 foreigners were subjected to inquest proceedings before the Pasay City Prosecutors Office for alleged cybercrimes.
Prior to the Pasay City raids, similar operations were carried out by the authorities in Las Pinas City and Pampanga.
