Spy in the Sky

I do not know what it is about cosmetic enhancement that makes one pretty but paranoid, but Senator Risa Hontiveros has done it again.

She called out my client, Linconn Ong (yup, that same Linconn Ong who was mercilessly tarred and feathered by Senator (Richard) Gordon’s committee over the Pharmally issue, after which Gordon was forcefully rebuked by the Supreme Court for his high-handedness) for supposedly being part of a human trafficking group just because Ong’s former employer’s company was called Yutai, the same name of a company in China that it was claimed engaged in criminal enterprise.

When I clarified to the lovely Senator Risa that Yutai was a generic term meaning “East Asia,” that my client’s Yutai made rechargeable fans that Risa and her staff probably had in their homes or offices, and that there were also instant noodles and a spa in Quezon City called “Yutai,” she never had the decency to apologize.

Now the beauteous Elder Statesman is seeing Chinese spies in every corner. She has tagged Bamban Mayor Alice Guo as one, although spies are, by the nature of their work, supposed to be low profile and not running for, and occupying, highly visible public office where they are obliged to be in the public eye.

Other politicians, too, have jumped on the “Chinese spy” bandwagon, claiming that POGO outfits are naught but spy rings in disguise, with mainland Chinese running around assuming fake Filipino identities, the better to blend with the general populace.

These people have been watching too many movies, not Filipino movies, unfortunately (for which the action genre has sadly been mostly dead). But methinks they have been watching the wrong spy thrillers. If they had only seen the series “The Americans,” they would know that spies are supposed to look just like the general populace, speaking the language like the natives, looking just like your average citizen with boring jobs and modest houses and unassuming clothes. POGO people are the exact opposite — they evidently look Chinese, segregate themselves from the population in their walled compounds, do not bother to sound Filipino, and stick out like sore thumbs with their privileged lifestyles.

We cannot, of course, discount that the Chinese government is definitely spying on us, as it surely spies on all other countries, and in the same manner that the United States spies on others, even its allies. Hence, the scandal wrought by l’affaire Snowden, where the whistleblower exposed the US’tapping the phone of high officials of even its closest allies, among other disturbing activities. That is why a highly embarrassed US government persecuted Snowden, who had to run to Russia for asylum.

But POGOs, or Alice Guo, are surely not spies; they do not fit the bill. Besides, spying, or to be technical about it, espionage, has a definite meaning in law. It is done by a private person who, without authority, enters a Philippine warship or military installation and obtains photos or other information related to the defense of our country, or a public official who, having possession of these kinds of information, discloses them to the representatives of a foreign government.

POGO operators in this country would rather gamble, indulge in prostitution and smuggle people in, than visit our military camps. Illegal, to be sure, but not espionage. And I doubt if Mayor Guo has ever passed secret information to the Chinese; she’s too busy flexing her designer fashion and trips abroad.

Ironically, it is the People’s Republic of China itself that has repeatedly urged our government to ban POGOs, calling them a blot on the reputation of China and a source of criminality. But our gaming regulators are deadset in its favor, not willing to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Strange that the country accused of using POGOs for spying wants it stopped, while the country accusing POGOs of being used to spy, wants it to go on.

One can only conclude that all this talk of spies in the night is nothing more than a “spy in the sky.”