The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Senator Risa Hontiveros revealed a “disturbing” pattern of abuse of Philippine visas leading to a possible collusion between personnel at the Bureau of Immigration (BI) who allow Chinese nationals to easily enter the Philippines.
Hontiveros made the revelation after she led a Senate investigation into the alleged links to prostitution and human trafficking of Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs).
Hontiveros cited an anonymous informant who claimed Chinese nationals, most of whom are employed as POGO workers, pay a P10,000 service fee on top of the regular tourist visa fee in exchange for easy entry into the country.
Immigration officials, who were present at the hearing, denied knowledge of such scheme and instead said reforms are now in place.
“There’s a disturbing pattern that seems to be emerging of the abuse of our travel documents. The abuse of our visas by syndicated Chinese and their kasabwat na Filipino travel agencies and tour operators,” Hontiveros said.
“That leads to the niggling doubt that there may be also collusion from inside the BI which should be the holder and the only guardians of these travel documents into the Philippines,” she added.
Hontiveros, who chairs the Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations, and Gender Equality, stressed that crime and corruption are connected with the POGO industry.
“Nagsimula kami kay Carina. So, a Filipino girl who was prostituted, may nakasama siyang ibang mga babae, foreign women, who’d been trafficked into the country by these China-based syndicates in collusion with their Philippines-based trafficking prostitution syndicates,” she said.
The senator was referring to a 15-year-old victim of a sex den catering to Chinese nationals who narrated her experience during a hearing led by Hontiveros last January 28.
“Because of that hearing, Ivy (Taiwanese woman) came forward to say she had been illegally recruited also to work in an illegal POGO like the POGO that Carina was sold to,” Hontiveros went on.
In a press conference, Taiwanese national Lai Yu Cian surfaced at the Senate after she was rescued from a POGO company, where she was physically, verbally and sexually abused.
“Now my informant says na because of the magnitude of the POGO industry here and their need to keep bringing in more and more Chinese workers, patuloy yung pag-abuse and pag-corrupt sa legal channels,” Hontiveros said.