The ongoing Senate investigations on the illegal activities of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) in the country appeared to uncover shortcomings and negligence by several government agencies in performing their public service mandates, according to Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero.

“Itong mga imbestigasyon pinapakita ang tila kapalpakan ng mga ahensya ng pamahalaan (These investigations seems to reveal the negligence of the government agencies),” Escudero said, as he particularly criticized the “lenient” production of birth certificates by the Philippine Statistic Authority. 

“Paano nga ba nakakapag-produce ng  mga birth certificates na hindi naman pala totoo ang mga nakalagay doon? (How could they easily produce birth certificates when the stated information were not true at all?),” he asked.

Escudero lamented that all government identifications (IDs), including the acquisition of passports by Filipinos, are based on the PSA’s birth certification. 

“Paano na yung mga ibang government ID na iniisyu natin. Dapat malinis iyan, matanggal kung anumang sindikato meron dyan at tiyakin na may check and balance tayo sa PSA (How about other government IDs that are being issued? It should be clean, if there are syndicates there, it should be eliminated and we need to make sure there’s a check and balance in PSA),” Escudero pointed out. 

Amid the emergence of Artificial Intelligence, Escudero stressed there’s no reason for the government not to detect and prevent any type of faking or counterfeiting of sensitive documents. 

Escudero made this remark amid the Senate’s ongoing inquiries against illegal POGOs in the country, which revealed that many Chinese and other foreign nationals had easily acquired government documents, and even license permits without undergoing to stringent process. 

“Sa dinami-dami ng illegal na POGO na naraid, karamihan ng mga nahuhuling Chinese nationals na andun ay illegal aliens na (with so many raided illegal POGOs, most of the Chinese nationals were caught were illegal aliens),” he lamented. 

Illegal aliens is a term used for those undocumented immigrants and foreign nationals residing in the country. 

POGO workers sans permits

Escudero cited that these Chinese nationals usually entered the country as tourists, mostly working in a Chinese-run POGO hub, without work permits.

He also questioned how the concerned government agencies could be lenient to foreign nationals with expired work permits.

“Bakit tila wala silang kaalam-alam o ginagawa kaugnay nito at kung hindi pa ire-raid ang illegal POGO, hindi pa nila malalaman na may ganun (why do they seem to have no knowledge or doing anything related to this and if the illegal POGO is not raided, they wouldn’t know that there is such a thing),” Escudero said. 

He said the concerned government agencies should have tallied how many foreign nationals did they issued work permits to. 

Escudero said the government should also review the seemingly “disjoint”  mandates between the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID).

He lamented that the issuance of visas to foreign nationals is being facilitated by different consulates worldwide and not by the BID. 

While the DFA has no right to issue work permits to foreign nationals. 

Thus, he said, most Chinese nationals entering the country were holders of tourist visas while they intended to work here in the Philippines. 

According to Escudero, the usual remedy for them was to convert their tourist visas into working permits, through the BID. 

“Apparently, there is no information sharing between the DFA and the BID with respect to the number of visas they have issued and how long the visa is for each and every individual that they have issued a visa in favor of in that particular jurisdiction or consulate,” Escudero said. 

He also lamented the BID’s lack of sufficient agents to monitor the issued visas to millions of foreigners entering the Philippines. 

Further, the Senate President questioned the accuracy of data from the Department of Tourism. 

“Kung ang intention pala nung iniisyuhan ng tourist visa ay magtrabaho, dapat ba nating ihiwalay, ung tourist arrivals na binibilang natin? (If the intention when issuing a tourist visa is to work, should we separate the counting of tourist arrivals?),” he said.

To get accurate data on foreigners entering the country, Escudero suggested that concerned government agencies should separately count those foreigners who wish to convert their tourist visas into work permits from those real tourists. 

“Para mas accurate, para naman mas tama, mas angkop ang datos natin. at ng mas kumpleto rin ang pagpaplano natin (So we could get more accurate, correct and appropriate data. And so we could complete our planning),” he said.