SENATE deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros yesterday said she has received information the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators’ hub raided recently in Bamban, Tarlac was possibly used for surveillance activities and hacking of government websites.
This after the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission said the investigations it conducted on raided POGO hubs mostly relate to cyber fraud and cyberscams in the world, which have traceable connections to the Philippines.
“I was very disturbed to hear that there is persuasive information from the intelligence community stating that the Bamban complex was used for surveillance activities and some of the reported high-profile cases of hacking of our own government websites are traceable to this complex,” Hontiveros said as the Committee on Women conducted an inquiry on the POGO hubs in Tarlac that were raided last March.
She said the information from the intelligence community is alarming as the Philippines is now fast becoming a scam hub.
“If these scam hubs are so lucrative, hindi na ito titigil (they will not stop). This would grow and grow. And before we know it, we would be faced with a threat to our national security like nothing we have ever seen before,” she said.
She said it is very evident these POGO centers are being used as crime hubs, even as she called on President Marcos Jr. to “start with banning POGOs.”
Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian earlier said that Bamban Mayor Alice Guo may have connections with the raided POGO hub since documents retrieved by the raiding team showed that a sports utility vehicle, electric bills, and housecleaning service for the POGO center were all in her name.
Guo, who physically attended yesterday’s hearing, denied that she has links to the POGO firm.
Guo said she sold the luxury SUV in 2020 while the electric bill and housecleaning services were still under her name since she was a former incorporator of BAOFU Land Development Inc., the lot where the POGO hub was constructed. She said she divested her interests in 2021 before she ran for mayor in 2022.
“I am not connected to that POGO hub or am an operator, protector, and coddler. I have nothing to do with its operations,” Guo said in Filipino.
Winston John Casio of the PAOCC wondered why the men they asked to help them open the vaults at the POGO hub suddenly made themselves unavailable.
Casio said the grinders that they left at Zun Yuan Tech to be used in opening the vaults were nowhere to be found when they returned to the compound to pry open the vaults.
Casio said one of the men claimed they were sent to attend a seminar allegedly sponsored by the local government of Bamban but Mayor Guo said she was not aware of it.
Hontiveros also asked the PNP leadership to explain why Col. George Buyacao, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-National Capital Region chief, was relieved from his post days after his team assisted the PAOCC in raiding the POGO hub in Bamban.
Hontiveros asked Guo for her background, curious as to why the mayor won the 2022 election even if she has no political background.
Guo said she was a businesswoman engaged in hog raising, just like her father.
Guo said she finished her primary and secondary studies via homeschooling but was not able to go to college.
Asked if she has records from the DepEd, the mayor said she was not sure, adding she has to check if the teacher who attended to her was authorized to conduct home-schooling programs.
Guo said her birth record was registered when she was already 17 years old.
Hontiveros also asked Guo to submit to the committee her Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth and Statement of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE) to determine the people who supported her in the last elections.
“I have to confess I am most alarmed by how opaque Mayor Alice Guo’s answers have been,” Hontiveros said.
The Committee secretary said they sent invitations to ranking officials of Zun Yuan Technology, the operator of the raided POGO hub and officials of other POGO centers raided but they were not able to reach them as they all gave non-existent addresses.
“We invited the president of Zun Yuan Technology (Jamielyn Cruz), the treasurer (Roderick Paul Pujante), and COS (chief of staff Juan Miguel Alpas). The address was based on the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) registration but unfortunately, those addresses are all bogus. So, we were not able to deliver the invitation,” she said.
