Probe POGOs, Quadcom presses OSG

Leaders of the House Quad Committee on Monday handed over a volume of “critical documents” to the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), urging it to pursue legal actions, including a civil forfeiture case against Chinese nationals accused of using fraudulent Filipino citizenship papers to illegally acquire land and operate businesses in the Philippines.

Committee chair Rep. Ace Barbers said the investigation findings should prompt the OSG to conduct its own inquiry for potential forfeiture proceedings in coordination with other state agencies.

“A lot has been discovered. Chinese nationals purchased huge tracts of land and we know that the Constitution prohibits foreign nationals from acquiring 100-percent ownership of our lands and putting up corporations,” said Barbers in Filipino at a press conference following the turnover ceremony.

Aedy Tai Yang, one of the central figures in the case, is a Chinese national suspected of falsifying documents to obtain Filipino citizenship and circumvent foreign ownership laws, allowing him to illegally acquire land and establish businesses in the country.

Yang was also linked to a P3.6-billion shabu bust in Mexico, Pampanga, in September of last year as one of the owners of Empire 999 Realty Corp., the warehouse where the drugs were seized.

The submitted documents included Yang’s Philippine Statistics Authority-issued birth certificate dated 23 August 2004 claiming he was born on 19 January 1983. A certification from the Municipal Civil Registry of San Antonio, Nueva Ecija, indicated that Yang’s registration records were unavailable due to a fire.

Additional evidence included certifications from the PSA on Yang’s marriage, tax declarations for properties in his name, and corporate records associated with him, such as those for Empire 999 Realty Corp. and Sunflare Industrial Supply Corp., both reportedly tied to suspicious land acquisitions.

Records from the Land Registration Authority showed these properties were owned by Empire 999’s incorporators.

The committee also presented documents on land transactions between Yang and the local government of Mexico, Pampanga, including memorandums of agreement, deeds of sale and municipal resolutions that allegedly bypassed legal procedures.

According to the committee, the Department of Agrarian Reform confirmed that some of the land sold by Yang did not undergo the required conversion process, underscoring the illegal nature of the transactions.

The panel urged Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra to initiate legal action, citing the activities as “blatant violations of our laws,” which require “immediate executive intervention.”