Military uniforms found in raided Porac POGO hub ‘partially authentic’

The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) said they initially assessed the authenticity of the military uniforms found in the raided Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) firm in Porac, Pampanga as “partially authentic.”

“We’re still checking on it,” PAOCC executive director Gilberto DC Cruz told Senator Win Gatchalian on Wednesday during a Senate inquiry on the alleged involvement of POGO firms in human trafficking, serious illegal detention, cyber fraud operations, and scamming activities in the country. 

Dela Cruz said they have already coordinated with their foreign counterparts to validate the authenticity of the military uniforms found in the raided Porac POGO hub. 

“Those emergency tags, when we translated because it was written in Chinese characters so when we translated it, the blood types came out, there were names. It’s like looking at the dog tags during the Vietnam war, there are like dog tags of Filipino and American soldiers on the battlefields,” Dela Cruz said. 

According to Dela Cruz, dog tags were a type of military identification used to determine the identity of dead or wounded soldiers during wars. 

“So we can say that partially, it’s authentic. As to where it came from—these may be used to deceive the workers that the illegal POGO hub is run by a Chinese military official or Chinese police,” he said. 

Dela Cruz said the PAOCC initially discovered that the raided POGO hub was also run by an absent without leave (AWOL) or retired police officer from Xiamen

However, Dela Cruz stressed that such initial information is "still under confirmation."

“But that’s what we discovered. Maybe the uniforms were used by scalawags members of foreign nationals working in that POGO hub or maybe these were used [as props] to scare their workers,” Dela Cruz explained. 

Earlier this month, PAOCC implemented a search warrant against the 10-hectare POGO hub, South 99 Outsourcing Inc., in Porac, Pampanga, over alleged human trafficking, prostitution, and torture activities happening inside the firm's building. 

Among the discovered items in the raided POGO hub were six sets of alleged Chinese military uniforms that bore designs associated with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), as well as the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force (CAPF) uniforms and two combat boots.