I’M talking about the relief of the Pasay City police chief and 27 of his men in the aftermath of the discovery of the illicit operations of two banned POGO sites-turned hub of prostitution and other illegal online activities on Friday last week.

If Colonel Froilan Uy and his men were relieved and subjected to an administrative investigation, will other officers and men of the Pasay City government, other concerned government agencies and the local barangay won’t be subjected to a similar probe for also failing to do their job?

What about the supposed duties and responsibilities of the City Hall’s Bureau of Permits, the Engineering Office, the Bureau of Fire Protection, the BIR, the PAGCOR and the barangay which automatically earn ‘big revenues’ from POGO facilities seeking required government clearances before they can operate? Do their job stop after the first inspection of those facilities?

Are they already off the hook now that the Pasay City police is under fire for supposedly failing to detect the presence of the two facilities found engaging in human trafficking and prostitution? Or will they just pin the blame on the local police?

To refresh everybody’s memory, a Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission-led raid on two banned Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) hubs in Pasay City on Friday last week led in the discovery that the two facilities are still engaging in illegal activities including human trafficking and prostitution.

In the aftermath of the raid, Col. Uy was administratively relieved from his post and replaced by Col. Mario Mayanes. Uy and 26 of his men were also ordered investigated over possible neglect of duty following the PAOCC-led raid at the Freego Computer Gaming OPC and Xuxhen Technology Corp. last October 27. Their offense: failure to detect the presence of illegal activities in the raided establishments.

A total of 731 workers including different foreign nationals, majority of them Chinese nationals were held for questioning during the raid at the six-storey building.

I learned that DILG Secretary Benhur Abalos called on PNP chief, General Benjie Acorda Jr. to relieve the Pasay City police chief and all the members of the local sub-station pending investigation on alleged sex trafficking, crypto scam, love scam and illicit online gaming taking place in the raided building.

“The trafficking of human beings is a horror that we must stamp out. Any complicity by government agents in this modern-day evil cannot be tolerated,” the DILG chief said in a letter to Gen. Acorda.

However, other officials told me the local police alone must not be solely blamed for failing to monitor the raided site citing the presence of the City Hall and its different bureaus and their inspectors who also have the responsibility to know what is really happening in their jurisdiction.

There are also other concerned government agencies which failed to monitor the illicit activities in the area including the presence of a ‘torture chamber’ where employees who have failed to pay their debts to the company are believed subjected to different kinds of torture.

Recovered inside the supposed ‘torture room’ were several pairs of handcuffs attached to a metal bar fixed on a wall, metal baseball bats, some of them already deformed after repeatedly striking an object, a wooden club, powerful stun guns and traces of blood.

A report to PAOCC chairman, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said that joint operatives of the PAOCC, the Department of Justice’s Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking and the PNP raided the two closed POGO facilities and took in for questioning a total of 731 workers.

PAOCC Executive Director Gilbert Cruz said that they have received information that foreign employees of the raided establishments who fail to pay their debts, some of them incurred after availing of the company’s prostitution rooms, are being tortured inside the room.

Armed with search warrants for violation of Republic Act 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act as amended by RA 10364 or the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act issued by Judge Maricris Pahate-Felix of the Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 35, government agents raided the Pasay City building.

According to Cruz, they discovered that the license of the two POGO facilities have been revoked by the Philippine Gaming Corporation although they were found to be operating under a new business name and under the new PAGCOR’s Internet Gaming License.

PAGCOR has not examined the raided establishments since security guards manning their compounds have refused entry to the inspection team.

Cruz said they found wo male Chinese workersbearing torture marks in their bodies during a physical inspection. The two claimed they have been ‘kidnapped’ and forced to work against their will.

During the search, officers discovered 731 workers including Filipinos and foreign nationals. Seven trafficked Filipinas were also found in an aquarium-style chamber on the building’s second floor which serves as a ‘viewing room’ of their clients.

The aquarium is next to a massage parlor that promotes sex as condoms and other sex gadgets and paraphernalia were recovered inside. Two female foreign massage therapists were also found in the massage parlor which had prominent signs marketing their sex service to the company employees.

Cruz said that nine top executives of the raided establishments werediscovered on the 4th level. He said that the nine were identified as the building’s real operators and administrators.

Cruz said that other businesses found within the compound were a KTV area with eight fully-furnished Karaoke rooms located in the ground area; a well-supplied pharmacy with a doctor and two patient beds on the same floor; and a restaurant on the ground floor and a ‘shabu-shabu’ area on the 6th floor which provide the whole compound with meals.

Officers also secured nine money vaults discovered on the 5th story of the raided facilities as they are believed to be carrying the revenues of human trafficking.

AUTHOR PROFILE

Alfred P. Dalizon