The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) raided the Sun Valley hub of a Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) in May 2023, seizing computers that were still not subject to digital forensic examination a year after the raid, PAOCC spokesperson Winston Casio said1.
Casio described the delay as a national weakness in digital forensics. The seized computers were listed in the return of the search warrant filed with the court, and the judge handling the case said that one year after the actual raid the machines had still not been examined1.
"Ang problema ng bansa natin, mahina tayo with regards to digital forensics. [When we raided] Sun Valley in May of 2023, ilang computers ang nakuha doon? Kasama 'yun sa return ng search warrant doon sa korte. Sabi nung judge na may hawak, one year after the actual raid, hanggang ngayon, hindi pa sina-subject to digital forensic examination the computers doon."
The raid sits inside a longer regulatory history. Republic Act 9487 authorized the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) to regulate games of chance, games of cards and games of numbers, and the law does not mention offshore gaming, which is why petitions challenging the constitutionality of POGOs remain unresolved; a March 2024 Supreme Court decision junked one petition on a technicality, for violating the hierarchy of courts1. Pagcor created POGOs in September 2016, the same year President Rodrigo Duterte said he was ordering the closure of all online gaming firms1. Pagcor froze the issuance of POGO licenses in 2019 amid controversy and resumed issuing them in early 20201.
Casio said the Philippines went from being a major online gaming jurisdiction to being among the largest scam farms in Southeast Asia1. He said 180,000 to 200,000 Chinese nationals were in the country after 2019, rotating around POGOs1. Suspicious transaction reports related to casino junkets rose steadily from 2016, fell in 2020 during the pandemic and climbed steeply from 2021, according to the Anti-Money Laundering Council1. The Financial Action Task Force put the Philippines on its gray list in June 2021, and the country was still on the list when the FATF released its list in June 20241.
What it means for players
The Sun Valley raid and the unexamined computers concern enforcement against POGO operators, not the legality of betting for ordinary customers. The article does not report any change to the rules for people who gamble in the Philippines, and it does not say what the seized machines contained. What it does show is that cases built from POGO raids can stall on technical and forensic grounds, which affects how quickly allegations against operators are tested in court. People who encounter gambling sites or apps marketed from the Philippines can read our guide to gambling scams and safety in Asia and our page on whether you can gamble in the Philippines. The article also describes workers held in a former POGO hub in Pasay that PAOCC has repurposed into an office and detention facility, with some filing for writs of habeas corpus1.
What happens next
The trafficking complaint against former Bamban mayor Alice Guo is still being resolved by prosecutors at the Department of Justice, which is why there is no court-issued warrant or hold departure order against her, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue had just filed a tax evasion case against her1. Guo's sister Sheila and a Porac POGO worker, Cassandra Li Ong, were arrested in Indonesia and are being held by Philippine authorities without a court charge, while Alice Guo remains at large and also faces no court charge1. The article does not report a date for the next hearing on the Sun Valley computers or for the resolution of the trafficking complaint.
Sources1 sources
- Shades of gray: How PH ended up with a POGO crisis, rappler.com
