Probe of POGO worker’s death urged

A Las Piñas City councilor on Thursday urged the House of Representatives Quad Committee to look into the mysterious death of a Chinese national at an illegal Philippine Offshore Gambling Operator (POGO) firm operating in a shopping mall in the city in 2019.

The POGO operation inside Vista Mall along CV Starr Avenue, Barangay Pamplona 2, was reportedly maintained by fugitive Chinese businessman Michael Yang, former presidential economic adviser of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte, according to Councilor Mark Anthony Santos.

Police reports identified the Chinese worker as Yang Kang, 27, who fell from the sixth floor of the mall after he reportedly tried to escape through a window. Vista Mall is owned by the Villar Group of Companies headed by former Senate president Manny Villar.

Yang, an information technology employee, was found sprawled on the ground in handcuffs by a security guard who was doing his rounds on 8 August 2019.

Video footage aired by a television station showed that Yang, who succumbed after a few hours while undergoing treatment at a nearby hospital, was able to remove the window grills to which he had been handcuffed.

Police reports identified the Chinese worker as Yang Kang, 27, who fell from the sixth floor of the mall after he reportedly tried to escape through a window.

Recruited by a fellow Chinese, the victim reportedly opted to resign from the POGO, but his employer required him to repay the money he had advanced for his flight to the Philippines.

A witness identified only as Aquan, 30, a Chinese, told police he saw Yang inside the conference room tendering his resignation letter to the manager, Li Yunxiang, alias Mr. Shiba, 30, also a Chinese.

Aquan said he was three to four meters away when Shiba left the building around midnight of 9 August, hours after Yang fell to his death.

City police considered Shiba the prime suspect who handcuffed the victim inside a room of the POGO.

On 4 September 2019, the city prosecutor’s office found Shiba, who remains scot-free, guilty of serious illegal detention and kidnapping, a non-bailable offense.

Santos, who is running for the city’s lone congressional seat against outgoing Senator Cynthia Villar, recalled that the city council approved a resolution granting occupational and business permits to the POGO firm to operate an on-line gaming hub in the Villars’ mall in 2019.

However, Santos said, they later discovered that Yang’s businesses inside the mall were illegally operating after noticing that hundreds of Chinese nationals had been recruited and were involved in prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture, and even murder.

He said the Quad Comm should invite ranking city police officials to shed light on their failure to arrest Shiba who could provide them with more information about the illegal POGO operation at the shopping mall.