Risa scores BI over Pogo ‘deportation gone wrong’
- Where are Lyu Xun, Kong Xiangrui, Wang Shangle? The alleged owners of a POGO raided by authorities were allowed by Immigration agents to evade deportation to China, said a piqued Sen. Risa Hontiveros.
- Hontiveros said the three Chinese “never arrived in China” after the BI ordered their deportation following the raid conducted by the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission. “What a shame, right?” Hontiveros said, raising her voice as she addressed BI chief legal officer Arvin Cesar Santos.
- According to the senator, the Chinese Embassy in Manila had complained about the BI’s policy of allowing deported Chinese citizens to take flights with stopovers. Santos said the bureau allowed the deportees to board transit flights since the Chinese government had not declared them to be fugitives.
Three Chinese nationals believed to be the “bosses” of an illegal Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo) evaded deportation to China after they were allowed by the Bureau of Immigration (BI) to board a layover flight to Hong Kong, according to Sen. Risa Hontiveros.
Presiding over a Senate hearing on Tuesday, a visibly piqued Hontiveros questioned senior immigration officials about the whereabouts of Lyu Xun, Kong Xiangrui and Wang Shangle, the alleged owners of a Pogo facility at RiRance Building on Tambo, Parañaque City, which was raided by authorities on Jan. 8.
Her latest exposé brought to light the government’s continuing difficulty in addressing the law enforcement issues surrounding Pogos months after they were banned.
Citing information received by her office, Hontiveros said the three Chinese “never arrived in China” after the BI ordered their deportation following the raid conducted by the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission.
“What a shame, right?” Hontiveros said, raising her voice as she addressed BI chief legal officer Arvin Cesar Santos.
“We are letting these rotten apples just get away scot-free,” she added. “[It’s] a deportation gone wrong, a simple and regular operation of the bureau that did not achieve its objectives.”
BI intelligence unit chief Fortunato Manahan Jr. confirmed that Lyu, Kong and Wang were the first three to be deported among the 438 foreign nationals rounded up in the Jan. 8 raid.
The three men took an Air Asia flight that had a stopover in Hong Kong before proceeding to mainland China, Manahan said.
The BI, he recalled, had a “dialogue” with the three Chinese nationals if they could pay for their own plane tickets since the bureau had no funds allocated for the deportation of arrested Pogo personnel.
Manahan said the alleged Pogo bosses left the country two weeks after the raid.
“This is the fastest deportation in the history of BI. And among the first to be deported were the three individuals who were suspected to be the bosses,” Manahan said in response to Hontiveros’ question.
But the senator said the Chinese deportees did not make it to their intended destination after they “disappeared” during their brief stopover.
Manahan said the BI had no information where the Chinese nationals actually went upon arrival in Hong Kong.
The admission further infuriated the opposition senator, who had led Senate inquiries into alleged Pogo-related crimes and corruption.
“Why doesn’t the bureau have information (about them)? The deportation process should be completed end-to-end,” Hontiveros asked. “And shouldn’t they be boarded on a direct flight, especially given the nature of these deportations? Their deportation is in connection with the ban on Pogos.”
According to the senator, the Chinese Embassy in Manila had complained about the BI’s policy of allowing deported Chinese citizens to take flights with stopovers.
Santos said the bureau allowed the deportees to board transit flights since the Chinese government had not declared them to be fugitives.
To this, Hontiveros replied: “How convenient! Just because they were not declared as fugitives?… It’s disturbing to think that they could be back in our country committing crimes.”
The “deportation gone wrong” was not the only reason the BI got a scolding from Hontiveros on Tuesday.
Earlier in the hearing, the senator warned that she would call for a top-to-bottom revamp at the agency for its failure to provide answers on how former Mayor Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac, an alleged Pogo protector now in jail and on trial, managed to escape the country last year.
“To Commissioner (Joel) Viado of the Bureau of Immigration, with all due respect, please consider this an ultimatum,” she said, adding:
“If no satisfactory answers on these matters are provided by the BI within 15 days, as designated chair of this subcommittee of the committee of justice, I will call for a revamp of the BI… starting from the commissioner himself.”
Hontiveros issued the warning after Manahan admitted being clueless on how Guo, also known as Guo Hua Ping, and her companions were able to leave the country undetected at the height of congressional inquiries into her alleged ties to a raided Pogo complex in her town.
Guo and her cohorts were reported to have left the country in July 2024. She was arrested in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sept. 4.
Manahan said the BI had yet to receive a response to letters it had sent to the immigration offices of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong.
Unacceptable
Hontiveros found it “unacceptable” that a high-profile fugitive managed to escape with apparent ease and the agency in charge was reduced to awaiting answers from foreign counterparts.
If the BI still could not piece together how Guo made the slip, “then at the very least (it should be) finding out if there were and who are (her) accomplices inside the bureau,” she said.
“You can imagine the frustration that the whole committee and the Senate would feel in this kind of situation where we still haven’t solved it—it shouldn’t even be a mystery,’’ the senator said.
How about Roque?
The BI official was also grilled about the whereabouts of lawyer Harry Roque, a former spokesperson for then President Rodrigo Duterte and who was also being investigated over alleged connections to another Pogo firm.
“Where—for God’s sake—is Harry Roque? Why is he free to post on social media as if he is mocking the administration and our authorities while avoiding arrest for charges of human trafficking? Who could be helping him?” asked Hontiveros.
“We had information that he went to Japan and he wasn’t able to go. He was supposedly bound for US but was denied flight at check-in. There were no holdings done by the Japan police and immigration. After that, we no longer had any information,” Manahan replied.
Dubai sightings
But the BI, he said, obtained information that Roque’s wife left Singapore for Dubai.
“There’s also sightings of Harry Roque in Dubai. There’s also information that they left sometime in December. Then after that, sorry, we don’t have anymore info,” he added.
According to Hontiveros, her office received word that Roque flew to Shanghai, China, from Dubai in December 2024.
But Manahan said they had no “validated proof” of Roque’s entry into China.
Meanwhile, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency Director Ferlu Silvio said Roque traveled from Zamboanga to Tawi-Tawi in September last year.
