Remulla: Philippines ready to deport 280 illegal POGO workers

The Philippines is ready to deport around 280 illegal employees of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla said Wednesday.

“We’re ready to deport, I think, 280 people by now. Meron na kaming in custody. We are scheduled to catch more people. Eh, ang problema lang talaga dito ‘yung protocol natin kasi nga we have to calibrate it,” Remulla told Super Radyo dzBB.

(We’re ready to deport, I think, 280 people by now. We have them in custody. We are scheduled to catch more people. The problem is the protocol because we have to calibrate it.)

The Justice secretary previously said he would meet with Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian regarding the deportation of POGO employees.

In a message to reporters, Remulla clarified that he is exchanging texts with the ambassador who is currently in China. Meanwhile, Justice spokesperson Mico Clavano said Remulla will meet with the ambassador on Thursday.

"He will meet with the Chinese ambassador tomorrow afternoon to speak about the canceled POGO companies as listed by Pagcor," Clavano said.

The Justice secretary said there were 216 previously licensed POGO companies that have stopped paying their dues. He estimated that around 40,000 employees may be staying in the Philippines illegally.

“We know where they all are, we know where the offices are, kaya it’s a matter of time before we resolve everything here,” Remulla said.

He added the government cannot detain all the employees at the same time.

“Syempre ayaw natin huliin nang sabay-sabay ‘yan kasi it can result in a humanitarian crisis kapag hindi natin ma-deport agad ang mga tao. So we want to calibrate all the movement para naman logical,” he said.

(Of course, we don’t want to arrest them simultaneously because this can result in a humanitarian crisis if we can’t deport them immediately. So we want to calibrate all the movement so it would be logical.)

Further, he said the filing of cases against these employees is not possible.

“Sa ating procedures kasi ngayon, hindi compatible ang filing of case and deportation. Kasi kapag nag-file ka ng kaso then we cannot deport them cause they have to be under the process of law,” Remulla said.

(So based on our procedures now, the filing of cases is not compatible with deportation. Because if you file a case then we cannot deport them because they have to be under the process of the law.)

“So we have a choice. Either to file cases or to summarily deport them. The logical thing is for summary deportation to take place kasi nga (because) we don’t want to be keeping 20,000 people in a makeshift jail,” he added.—AOL, GMA News