The Pogo ban’s silent dividend: A challenge to our judicial conscience

While the national headlines are rightfully occupied by the staggering greed unearthed in the flood control scandals—where contractors and certain legislators seem to treat the public coffers as their personal fiefdoms—a far more hopeful story is quietly unfolding in our streets. It is a story of “glad tidings” that deserves more than a passing glance; it deserves our collective recognition and a serious analysis of why it is happening.

Recent data from the Philippine National Police and Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla reveal a significant 12.4 percent drop in focus crimes nationwide in 2025. In Metro Manila, the figure is even more dramatic: a 21.7 percent decrease. When we look at the specifics—a 22.6 percent drop in rape, 20 percent in car theft, and nearly 18 percent in murders—we are not just looking at statistics. We are looking at a society that is becoming tangibly safer.

As a private law practitioner for over six decades, I have seen many administrations attempt to “crack down” on crime. Too often, those attempts were rooted in a twisted sense of values—a belief that safety could only be bought through fear, shortcuts, and a blatant disregard for the very due process we are sworn to uphold.

However, the current trend under Executive Order No. 74 suggests a different, more sophisticated path. The total ban and crackdown on Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos) have removed a massive criminal ecosystem that acted as a magnet for kidnapping, human trafficking, and violent “Chinese-on-Chinese” crime. By surgically removing these hubs of illegality, the government hasn’t just reduced crime; it has lowered the “threat level” that once permeated our urban centers.

This is a triumph of strategic law enforcement over brute force. It proves that when the government identifies the root causes of social cost—as the Department of Finance correctly did regarding Pogos—and acts with executive resolve, the results are both immediate and humane.

Yet, as any veteran of the bar knows, the “police side” of the ledger is only half the story. While we commend Remulla and the PNP for their increased visibility and strategic gains, these efforts risk being squandered if our judicial system remains mired in the “long, lingering illness” of clogged dockets and procedural delays.

If the police are now delivering fewer but more substantiated, arrests based on intelligence rather than intimidation, the burden of proof shifts to a judiciary that must prove itself equally efficient. A decrease in crime should ideally lead to a swifter resolution of cases. We cannot have a “modern” police force feeding cases into a “medieval” court system where the wheels of justice turn so slowly they eventually grind to a halt.

While we must remain vigilant against the greedy “ilk” who siphon off our flood control funds, let us not be so blinded by indignation that we fail to see the progress right in front of us. A 12-percent drop in crime is a silent dividend for every Filipino family. It is proof that, for a change, the rule of law is winning. Now, it is up to our courts to ensure that this victory is not just recorded in a police ledger, but felt in every courtroom in the land.