AIDAN HOWE-UNSPLASH

By John Victor D. Ordoñez, Reporter

A SENATOR has urged the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to ramp up efforts to keep foreigners linked to illegal Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) out of the country and deter them from setting up more illegal outfits.

“They just move around,” Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian said in a statement on Monday, referring to foreigners involved in POGOs. “They’ve already slipped past our immigration and now they freely hop from one POGO company to another.”

“As gatekeepers, the BI should effectively repel criminal elements that are only bent on making our country an area of operation for illegal activities,” he said.

More than 4,000 people have fallen prey to POGO-related crimes such as human trafficking in the first half of last year, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said last October.

Mr. Gatchalian earlier filed a resolution seeking to permanently ban these operations in the country, saying many of these are still licensed under the Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor) despite their links to crime.

Pagcor said in August last year that it would start privatizing its 45 casinos by the third quarter of 2025, expecting to generate about P60 to P80 billion in revenue.

The senator had said the move would make up for state losses from the closure of POGO companies after Pagcor failed to collect from them about P2.2 billion in unpaid dues.

“Every time a POGO (hub) is raided, there are always fugitives (apprehended) who are wanted by their respective countries,” Mr. Gatchalian said in Filipino.

Malacañang earlier this month ordered the Anti-Money Laundering Council to freeze the assets of a POGO hub in Tarlac province in northern Philippines.

A total of 868 POGO workers were rescued during a March 13 raid after the company was linked to human trafficking and torture crimes.

The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission seized about P6 million in cash and passports in 11 vaults found in the POGO hub. Authorities also seized at least 60

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