POGO perspectives and polemics
It is not helped by the report that Chinese mainland nationals, entering either as tourists, as gambling operators, or illegally smuggled in as contractual factory or construction workers, were able to slip through security protocols and were able to photograph the defense facilities of our military bases.
The situation is worsened when a few days ago the Defense Department reported that a menacing fleet of five to nine armed Chinese warships had entered Philippine waters secretly, and illegally thus prompting the presidential spokesman whose job it is to speak for and elucidate Rodrigo Duterte’s thoughts and messages to declare quite rhetorically, “I do not think this is an act of friendship.”
Indeed, it is not. The Chinese warships, which included an aircraft carrier involved in antiship ballistic missile tests, had deliberately disengaged their automatic identification systems to avoid detection. In contrast, the unassimilated intrusion of an increasing cadre of foreigners in our neighborhoods where our children play and our families live cannot lie undetected.
A burning fuse seems to be quickly racing towards a deadly powder keg as, already, one international British publication has described our increasing predicament with an expansionist superpower as a “bombshell.” Fortunately, it hasn’t exploded. Yet.
Given diplomatic relationships strained recently by such incidents as an unintended mid-sea mishap, the presence of Chinese poachers illegally stealing away the meager livelihood of our poorest fishermen, and the escalating annoyance of Filipinos over a dubious influx that brings with it the gambling, drugs and violence brought about by largely unwelcome interlopers, then it is easy to side with Malacañang’s discomfort with warships in the horizon.
The threat is, after all, obvious and far from friendly. The Palace spokesman, whose prose we usually disagree with, could not have said it better. From where we stand, in our own syntax and speech, when a loaded gun is pointed in your direction with you, vulnerably at the crosshairs, then that is not “an act of friendship.”
While the foregoing are essentially national concerns affecting Philippine sovereignty, security and an economy in need of real and substantial foreign direct investments after having seriously faltered on these for six years in the previous administration, they deepen existing domestic and localized perspectives and polemics on the controversies surrounding Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGO) and their virtual invasion of our immediate neighborhoods.
The POGO are viewed under different lights, often disparate and conflicting. The recent announcement by the Chinese embassy in Manila regarding a proposal to limit their presence to hubs where they might live and work was met with both surprise and a fair amount of negativity.
On one end people increasingly discomforted with POGO in their neighborhoods were surprised to learn that their mere existence violated anti-gambling laws in China. Realizing that their presence in the Philippines was a legal loophole accommodating an illegality simply worsened existing negativity.
On the other end, the tone of the Chinese statement where it warned against treating those undermining
Chinese law with discrimination deepened what animosity had already been pervasive. It did not help that soon after, even before the ink had dried on the statement, a
Chinese national figured in a crime based on discriminatory profiling.
While the proposal to place POGO in hubs continues as an option, the perspectives taken by government agencies are at best confusing. The gaming authorities simply say that POGO will perpetuate. The finance authorities are being myopic and are focused simply on tax takes and prospective billions in revenues. The labor authorities still have their heads in the sand and have not addressed illegal factory and construction workers.
The Defense authorities paint the darkest hues. And it is that side of this tableau that is most terrifying.
“While the proposal to place POGO in hubs continues as an option, the perspectives taken by government agencies are at best confusing
“A burning fuse seems to be quickly racing towards a deadly powder keg as, already, one international British publication has described our increasing predicament with an expansionist superpower as a ‘bombshell.’