These are among the challenges facing the powerful quad committee following its two public hearings. It is expected to resume its hearings on Wednesday. But its lead chair, Surigao del Norte (2nd District) Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, said the panel will not be pressured by any group and that it will scrutinize the testimony of potential witnesses for weight and importance.

“The upcoming hearings will be a blockbuster because we will have more witnesses,” Barbers told CoverStory.ph on Friday night. He declined to identify the witnesses.

But an unexpected resource person has materialized: Cassandra Li Ong, the business partner of the fugitive ex-Mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac. Ong is also the representative of Lucky Star 99 Outsourcing Inc. and the corporate secretary of Whirlwind Corp.—Pogos in Porac, Pampanga, that are being investigated by authorities.

Ong and Shiela (also spelled as Sheila in reports) Guo, the ex-mayor’s sister, were arrested in Indonesia last week and have since been flown back to the Philippines. Ong is now detained at the House of Representatives and Shiela Guo at the Senate.

Ong and Shiela Guo are expected to appear on Tuesday before the Senate committees on women, on justice and on public services, which are investigating Pogos including Alice Guo’s escape from the country along with her siblings and Ong. Barbers said the quad committee had to change its agenda again following Ong’s surfacing.

‘Explosive’ testimonies

In his interview with CoverStory.ph, Barbers denied for the nth time that the quad committee is after Duterte and his allies. With its two public hearings marked by “explosive” testimonies from witnesses linking Duterte, his family members and allies to criminal activities, the former president’s camp has accused the Marcos administration of political harassment. 

The quad committee has so far listened to the testimony of convicted hitman Leopoldo Tan, who claimed that he and fellow convict Fernando Magdadaro killed three Chinese drug lords in the Davao Penal and Prison Farm in August 2016 allegedly on Duterte’s orders.  

Another convict, Jimmy Guban, a former Customs intelligence officer, implicated Davao City (1st District) Rep. Paolo Duterte and Vice President Sara Duterte’s husband Mans Carpio as well as Michael Yang, a business adviser of the former president, in the missing P6.8-billion shabu shipment in 2018. 

Guban, recanting his earlier Senate testimony that earned him a contempt citation, said former environment undersecretary Benny Antiporda had asked someone to warn him not to link Paolo Duterte, Carpio and Yang to the missing shabu shipment, or he may end up dead. Paolo Duterte, Carpio and Antiporda have denied Guban’s testimony.

Harry Roque, Rodrigo Duterte’s former spokesperson, has also been linked to Lucky South 99, of which Cassandra Li Ong is one of the incorporators, and which was recently raided by authorities for alleged criminal activities. Roque has denied serving as legal counsel for Ong. At the last hearing, panel members asked Roque about the increase in the investments in his subsidiaries; he responded that the money was made up of proceeds from the sale of an almost 2-hectare commercial lot owned by his family in Parañaque City.

‘No politics involved’

“There is no political persecution and there is no politics involved [in the quad committee’s inquiry],” Barbers said. The panel is made up of his own committee on dangerous drugs, the committee on public accounts chaired by Abang Lingkod Party-list Rep. Joseph Paduano, the committee on public order and safety chaired by Sta. Rosa Rep. Dan Fernandez, and the committee on human rights chaired by Manila (6th District) Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr. 

Barbers said the quad committee was formed after separate investigations of the committees since last year, which led them to believe that the government is now up against a Chinese criminal syndicate operating in the country. He said House Speaker Martin Romualdez had asked about the committees’ next action after their separate inquiries, and he had proposed the creation of the quad committee.

“Our theory is that there is a big Chinese criminal organization operating in the country and their operations include illegal drugs, the sales proceeds of which are used by them to buy land here,” Barbers said. 

He said this syndicate has been “corrupting” government agencies into providing the members with Filipino identities, to make them eligible to buy land amounting to thousands of hectares across the country.

Barbers said this syndicate is also engaged in prostitution, murder, and money laundering, among others, and has put up warehouses and illegal Pogos on their purchased land.

In belying claims that the quad committee is only after the political harassment of former president Duterte and his allies, Barbers cited a finding of his committee’s inquiry last October into the P3.6 billion worth of shabu discovered in a warehouse in Pampanga: that the warehouse owner is one of the incorporators of a company owned by Yang. 

The lawmaker said they invited Yang to appear before the committee to give him “the opportunity to clear his name,” adding: “We wanted to know why his company is involved with a company that owns the [illegal] drugs.”

Yang never showed up despite several invitations by the committee and a promise made by his lawyer of his appearance, Barbers said.

Barbers was referring to the 530-kilogram shabu shipment that entered the country last year and was transported to a warehouse at Barangay San Jose Molino in Mexico, Pampanga. His committee found out that Empire 999, the company that owned the warehouse, was partly owned by Yang’s associate, Lincoln Uy Ong, who was supposedly involved in the Duterte administration’s alleged anomalous procurement of health supplies from Pharmally Pharmaceuticals Corp. during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The warehouse was also found to be majority-owned by Chinese nationals who presented fake Filipino documents.

At the same committee hearing last year, Col. Eduardo Acierto testified virtually to reaffirm his 2017 report that Yang was involved in illegal drugs and that the then president supposedly ignored the information.

Acierto, who formerly worked with the Philippine National Police drug enforcement group, also accused the former president of ordering his execution following his revelations. He went into hiding after Guban initially tagged him as among those behind the drug shipment. 

‘To ferret out the truth’

“They can say whatever they want to say, but to us, the quad committee’s objective is to ferret out the truth. If someone like our friends is tagged here, so be it,” Barbers said.

He said the quad committee intends to come out with remedial legislation “as to how we can prevent similar criminal organizations from coming here and to hold accountable government employees who have been enablers of these criminal syndicates.”

Barbers said he will not be surprised if the Chinese syndicates have entrenched themselves in government agencies, citing, for example, the report that the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary Corp. has members who are Chinese citizens. He had earlier questioned the recruitment of Chinese nationals into the Coast Guard, saying this occurred when tension was high between the Philippines and China over the West Philippine Sea. 

He also pointed out that in many drug raids and investigations, Chinese nationals were ending up as suspects.

He likewise wondered why offshore gambling was allowed in the country “in the guise of helping the economy” when China bans such an activity.

“This is what is happening now and there is a problem: Big Chinese syndicates are entering the country. We want to prevent this from happening. [China] is already snatching our land; will they also snatch our government?” he said.

On the land purchase by Chinese groups, Barbers said that in Pampanga alone, more than 1,000 hectares have been bought by them. He said parts of the land are turned into Pogos and warehouse sites. In Porac, Pampanga, he said, land leased by the Chinese company to Filipinos was used as an illegal Pogo “with scam hubs.”

“They set up legitimate companies to wash their money,” Barbers said, adding that two Chinese “finance guys” connected with the Pogo allegedly associated with Alice Guo have been charged with money laundering.

He also cited the police’s discovery during the past administration that a piggery had been put up in Pampanga as a front to mask the smell coming from the shabu lab in the property basement. 

“They set up legitimate corporations here. That is why we should be careful,” he said.

They want to testify

Asked how many more hearings the quad committee is expected to conduct, Barbers said they have received emails and text messages from people who wanted to testify. 

He said the panel will interview these people with the help of legal experts in order to determine whether their information will be of help in the inquiry on the links among Pogos, illegal drugs and EJKs.

Those who wish to come forward include some who just want to be in the limelight and who are merely after political gains, Barbers said. He said the panel tends to drop them as potential witnesses.

“If we were politicizing this inquiry, we could have used these witnesses. But we do not want that,” he said. 

He underscored the importance of looking into the background of would-be witnesses “because this is an unprecedented and historic committee in the history of the Philippine Congress.”

“We don’t want the image of this quad committee destroyed,” he said. “This must leave a legacy because what is important to us is our integrity and credibility. Otherwise, no one would believe us.”

Barbers said there had been attempts to preempt the panel’s investigation, including preventing the coming out of witnesses. He said the panel makes it a point for witnesses to present judicial affidavits so their testimonies will not be mere hearsay.

And while there have been “explosive” testimonies, “that doesn’t mean everything is true,” he said, adding that the panel is listening to what is being said and will consult with legal experts preparatory to writing its committee report.

For example, he said, the quad committee will invite the officials that Leopoldo Tan had implicated as well as another person deprived of liberty who could corroborate his testimony.

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In an interview with CoverStory, Pimentel raised the need for the President to “designate” an anti-Pogo czar so that there will be “someone in charge” and to institute “command responsibility” in the job of banishing the gaming hubs from the country.

Asked if he had anyone in mind for the job, he said it should be “someone like Sen. Risa Hontiveros or Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian.” He described the two lawmakers as “genuinely and seriously against Pogo, are willing to devote time and energy to the ‘cause,’ and do not easily give up.”

Hontiveros chairs the Senate committee on women, children, family relations and gender equality which is currently investigating illegal Pogos in the country. She and Gatchalian are reported to have received threats on their lives for their ongoing inquiry. 

During his third State of the Nation Address last month, Mr. Marcos ordered authorities to wind down the operations of Pogo hubs in the country by the end of the year, saying that “their operations have ventured into illicit areas farthest from gaming, such as financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture, even murder.”

“The grave abuse and disrespect to our system of laws must stop,” he said, eliciting a standing ovation from members of Congress and other government officials.

Pagcor 

In charge of enforcing the presidential directive is the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) chaired by Alejandro Tengco. Earlier, Tengco said there were only 42 legal Pogos—rebranded as “internet gaming licensees (IGLs)”—that his office would shut down by the end of the year.

Pimentel had threatened to push for Pagcor’s abolition if it fails to comply with Mr. Marcos’ directive on Pogos. But he told CoverStory: “So far, all indicators show that Pagcor will comply with the President’s very clear and categorical directive and order.”

“Should the direction of the wind change all of a sudden, then I will be ready to call out such disobedience and disrespect coming from the underlings of the President,” he said, adding they have “no right and power to undermine the decision” of Mr. Marcos.

Told that government agencies led by the Department of Justice recently met to coordinate efforts to enforce the Pogo ban policy, the opposition senator said this was a “good start” and that there was now “clarity on how to address” the ban. This also “puts an end to all doubts on whether Pogos should be allowed in the country,” he said.

“As for the government response, so far so good,” he added, and reiterated his support for the administration on this effort.

To ensure that the ban is put firmly in place, Pimentel said, the government should “pay attention to the details” and “coordinate its actions” apart from assigning an anti-Pogo czar for command responsibility. He also said it would be “wise” for Congress to come up with legislation “which gives the ban a permanent character.”

“Such legislation should [penalize] the establishment of Pogos as well as associated acts. We should also address numerous loopholes in our existing laws, like strengthening our laws governing the delayed registration of births, among others,” he said.

There are now two bills in the Senate seeking to repeal the law taxing Pogos in an effort to outlaw the gambling hubs. Sen. Joel Villanueva filed a measure shortly after the President announced the ban on the gaming hubs; Gatchalian filed the same bill as early as May because of the increasing number of Pogo-related crimes.

Alice Guo

Asked how the government could respond to doubts that the ban would be enforced given the way Pogos have supposedly entrenched themselves under the sponsorship of local officials, as now being alleged against Mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac, Pimentel said he was “sure” the ban would be carried out “with political will, discipline in the bureaucracy, and clear spheres of responsibilities.”

“The Office of the President should be ready to sanction and punish those who disobey the policy, including local government officials,” he said. 

Guo, who has a standing arrest warrant for skipping the Senate hearings, is being investigated for her alleged links to Zun Yuan Technology, the raided Pogo hub in Bamban. 

The mayor’s Filipino citizenship has been questioned in the Senate inquiry, with the National Bureau of Investigation saying that her fingerprints matched that of Guo Hua Ping, a Chinese national who entered the country in 2003. The mayor’s birth was registered only in 2013, or 17 years after she was supposedly born in 1986.

Harry Roque

On the revelations that have emerged from the ongoing Senate inquiry, including the possible Pogo links of Harry Roque, the spokesperson of then President Rodrigo Duterte, Pimentel said he “applaud[s]” Hontiveros for the “hard work” in investigating Pogos. He also said he was “eagerly awaiting” the release of the committee report and added that its findings “must be used to guide future actions.”

“Atty. Harry Roque is a competent lawyer; he can defend himself and explain why his name is cropping up,” Pimentel said. 

Roque and 11 other “persons of interest” in the Pogo hub in Porac, Pampanga, are now under an immigration lookout bulletin order.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla ordered the Bureau of Immigration to monitor the itineraries, travel, and whereabouts of Roque and the 11 other persons in relation to the cases against illegal Pogo incorporators and corporate officers of Lucky South 99 and Whirlwind Corp.

In a statement to the media, Roque said the immigration lookout order issued against him was “plain harassment” and a “political witch hunt intended to silence me as a critic of this administration.”

He said he has no reason to leave the country and will face his accusers and answer allegations against him.

Roque said the only pieces of evidence authorities had on him was his accompanying Katherine Cassandra Li Ong to Pagcor’s Tengco for “rescheduling of arrears payment” and “an uncorroborated organizational chart” which named him as in charge of legal matters. He had “no participation in preparing” the chart, he said, adding: “Neither did I consent to my name’s inclusion.”

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