BARMM cops watch ‘back door’
COTABATO CITY—The Bangsamoro police has strengthened its security and monitoring against persons, including foreigners, who use the region’s island provinces as their escape route to nearby countries.
The move came in the wake of the arrest of five blacklisted Chinese workers of a Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo) who tried to illegally leave the country through its so-called southern back door.
Police Brig. Gen. Romeo Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (Probar), told the Inquirer in an interview that they have yet to turn over to authorities in Metro Manila the five Chinese Pogo workers whom the police in Tawi-Tawi province had rescued and later held after the boat they were riding developed engine trouble on March 21 in the waters off Barangay Sikullis of Languyan town.
Two of the blacklisted Chinese workers were fugitives wanted in China, while all five were previously linked to Lucky South 99, a Pogo company operating in Porac, Pampanga, that was raided in June 2024 for alleged illegal activities, including human trafficking and engaging in online scam.
Look out
A report from the Tawi-Tawi Police Provincial Office, led by Police Col. Rodolfo Inoy Jr., said that five sachets of suspected crystal meth (“shabu”) were also recovered from the Chinese Pogo workers, Macapaz said.
According to him, the five Chinese have divulged they had many “connections” but the police could not “confirm right now who these connections they are referring to, and that’s what we are trying to find out.”
“We are now tracing how they arrived in Tawi-Tawi using their connections,” Macapaz said.
Probar has been following directives from the chief of the Philippine National Police and President Marcos to look out for the foreign nationals who will possibly use the area as their escape route or point of entry to the Philippines, according to the police official.
“We have continuous monitoring against not just Chinese but all foreign individuals entering the area,” he said. “We need to ensure that they will enter our area legally.”
Macapaz admitted that the Pogo workers recently arrested would have sneaked out of the country had the boat carrying them left the area successfully.
“As far as I know, this is the first time that we intercepted foreign nationals trying to run away using the back door,” he said.
Several times in the past, however, antitrafficking groups have rescued potential human trafficking victims whose recruiters used Tawi-Tawi as their jump-off point to Sabah, Malaysia, where they were promised jobs without the needed travel and work documents.
