Porac, Pampanga Officials Face Graft Charges due to Illegal POGO Ties

October 17, 2024 Philippines Crime & Legal

Graft charges were filed against Porac, Pampanga mayor Jaime Capil, Vice Mayor Francis Tamayo and several others after being tagged with the operations of an illegal Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) linked to criminal activities.

Aside from them, Emerald Vital, who heads Porac’s Business Permit and Licensing Office along with councilors Rafael Canlapan, John Nuevy Venzon, Rohner Buan, Michelle Santos, Hilario Dimalanta, Essel Joy David, and Addrian Carreon, were slapped with charges related to the Republic Act 3019 or the “Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act,” Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking lawyer Ramoncito Ocampo said, as cited by a report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

These local officials are being investigated for supposed “negligence” in granting the controversial Lucky South 99 POGO hub a business permit from 2021 to 2023 despite lapses in the papers they sent for application.

“This was the result of a case build-up and coordinating conference with the DOJ (Department of Justice), Paocc, and the Philippine National Police – Crime Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG,) and kasama rin ang IACAT team,” Ocampo pointed out.

“If you look at the application forms, they were blank but were still processed. And the primary purpose of Lucky South was outsourcing, not POGO. So, it violated its primary and secondary purposes,” Santos pointed out in Filipino.

This development comes after authorities in Laguna arrested the “big boss” of the Pampanga-based POGO hub, whom they described as the “kingpin of POGOs.”

The big boss, identified as Lyu Dong, has established POGOs in the Ilocos region, Central Luzon, Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon), and Metro Manila, according to a Manila Times report.

Authorities also believe this was the “big boss” dismissed Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Guo – who is currently embroiled in cases involving her own nationality and her ties to illegal offshore gaming hubs – refused to identify in Congressional hearings.