The kidnapping of a Chinese teenager last week in Taguig City added to a long list of recent crimes targeting foreigners in the Philippines. The boy, a student at the prestigious British School Manila, was reported kidnapped after being picked up from school by his driver last Thursday 20 February.
Exactly a week later, the Philippine National Police (PNP) announced that they had recovered the kidnapped minor in Parañaque City after an operation. Jonvic Remulla, secretary of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), revealed that the brains behind the Chinese teen’s kidnapping were also other Chinese nationals involved in the now-banned Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) industry.
Remulla further bared that the leader of the crime syndicate that perpetrated the kidnapping was involved in another incident last year, when he shot a compatriot dead at a Chinese restaurant in Makati City. The suspect, who the interior secretary identified as Wang Dan Yu or “Bao Long”, apparently entered the Philippines to set-up a POGO business several years ago.
In an interview with ANC’s Headstart program, Remulla lamented that these crimes are the direct result of POGOs entering the country: “The culture that POGO brought to the country was that of extreme perfidy and extreme pathological behavior that they had no conscience into what they were doing.”
The interior secretary’s pronouncements are not farfetched, if the suspect Bao Long already committed murder in broad daylight last year he should have already been in jail now. Instead, he is still at large and able to command his criminal group to perpetrate this high-profile crime.
Bao Long also is far from being the first POGO-linked Chinese national who has dabbled in criminal activity in the Philippines. In January, a Chinese restaurant owner was also rescued from kidnappers by police in Cavite province – the suspects are believed to have been involved in POGO operations previously.
Only a week before that rescue operation in Cavite, the PNP also arrested two Chinese nationals at their hideout in General Trias City for alleged kidnapping of their compatriots. Firearms and cash were recovered from the suspects, who police believe are linked to illegal POGO operations as well.
According to the PNP Anti-Kidnapping Group (PNP-AKG), all eight kidnapping cases recorded in 2025 so far have all involved foreigners – both as the victims and the perpetrators. This surge of foreigner-on-foreigner crimes are attributed to individuals who entered the Philippines through the POGO industry, which President Bongbong Marcos Jr. banned outright last year through an executive order.
The President deemed it necessary to outlaw the online gaming business, an industry supposedly worth US$3.5 billion, for “national security” reasons. Among the plethora of organized crimes linked to POGOs include human trafficking, online scams involving cryptocurrency and “love” scams, and like the cases previously mentioned – kidnapping.
There is more than enough reason not to allow POGOs to continue operating in the country, having peaked during the time of Marcos’ predecessor – former president Rodrigo Duterte – who was adamant in refusing to ban these online gaming operators allegedly due to the revenue they brought in. However, despite President Marcos’ pronouncement to ban POGOs last year there are still remnants of this industry in the country today.
On the same day that the Chinese student was kidnapped in Taguig, authorities raided a Chinese-run POGO facility in Parañaque City and arrested 453 foreign nationals. This particular POGO was engaged in sport betting scams, targeting Chinese and Indian nationals.
The spate of kidnappings of Chinese nationals by their fellow Chinese is an indication that rather than being eliminated, these POGOs have instead diversified and are now engaging in other forms of crime as well. The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) reported last year that since the ban, POGO facilities simply fragmented into smaller units.
With their stubborn ability to survive, their capability to hide in the shadows and the social illnesses that they bring, POGOs are becoming akin to cockroaches in Philippine society. The Marcos Jr. government needs to do more than issue executive orders, it must now understand where the remnants of this banned online gambling industry has now perforated.
More needs to be done to fully fumigate what vestiges of POGOs subsist in the country, and what lawless activities they have branched out to. It is an infestation that began when a previous administration obstinately allowed filth to pollute the country, and now the current regime is left to clean up the mess.