Damning allegations that dismissed Mayor Alice L. Guo is a Chinese spy and that China “arranged” her election have raised accusations that Filipino security officials were caught with their pants down.
Such accusations of a failure of intelligence, however embarrassing, could also be a case of hindsight bias or the tendency to see events as being predictable than they were.
Nonetheless, hindsight bias doesn’t totally excuse our national security officials. We can still reproach them for their sheer lack of imagination in confronting Chinese schemes.
If the allegations are proven true that China’s secretive Ministry of State Security imaginatively had put into office one of their own, our national security officials need to enliven their imaginative chutzpah to preempt any and all surreptitious Chinese designs.
Consequently, the immediate imaginative task at hand is not to dismiss outright the possibility that Chinese security agencies had ingeniously coopted Chinese criminal syndicates behind Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) to further China’s state interests.
Recent revelations in the Guo case, in fact, already indicate such cooptation. So much so that nowadays there is loose talk about what is dubbed as “POGO politics.”
Last week, for instance, both Senator Joel Villanueva and the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) raised warnings about possible electoral manipulation and interference in next year’s midterm elections by the officially banned POGOs.
PAOCC believes Chinese criminal syndicates might bankroll POGO-friendly candidates to insure their illegal businesses will be resurrected once friendlier politicians are elected into office.
Moreover, if we are to believe a sitting senator who claims to have met several elected politicians whom he strongly suspects are Chinese mainland nationals, the Guo spying allegation isn’t isolated, generally indicating that for some time now our elections have been effectively compromised by China.
As such, as the 2025 elections approaches, security officials must tightly watch the politicians, particularly malleable local politicians whom Chinese criminal syndicates could easily influence.
On this, our national security officials need not look far and wide. All they need to do is heed the Defense department’s earlier warnings about having POGOs near or around military installations.
The Defense department has good reason for sounding the alarm. The raided Porac, Pampanga POGO, for instance, is near a major Air Force base and the similarly raided Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu POGO is near a Navy base.
Underscoring the possible symbiosis of local politicians and Chinese criminal syndicates, however, doesn’t only involve politicians. It also involves government bureaucrats, especially those tasked with documenting and certifying Filipino identity papers.
This, largely because as the deadline nears for all foreign POGO workers to leave the country the integrity of Filipino identity documents like birth certificates are likely at risk.
Immigration officials reported last week that more than 10,000 foreign POGO workers have so far complied with directives to apply for a visa downgrading. Foreign POGO workers have until 15 October to downgrade their work visas to temporary visitor visas. The change would allow them to legally remain in the country for 59 days or until 31 December.
The 10,000 figure is more than 25 percent of the 38,773 foreign POGO workers which the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. has on record.
There won’t be much of an issue if all foreign POGO workers comply with the government’s visa directive.
But there will be major issues if the thousands of POGO workers prolong their stay here by procuring fake Filipino identity papers.
Such a possibility isn’t farfetched. If there is anything conclusive so far about the Guo case it is the fact that it is easy for foreign nationals to obtain fake identity papers.
Security officials, therefore, have to closely monitor any suspicious surge to get identity documents as well as keep a tight watch on criminal syndicates specializing in procuring or producing such fake papers.
Heads of agencies involved with issuing Filipino identity documents, meanwhile, could also temporarily put on hold the late registration of births, at least until all foreign POGO workers have left the country.