00:00A month has passed since the Pogo Hub in Bamban, Tarlac, was discovered by the GMA Integrated News.
00:13While the Pogo in Porac, Pampanga seems like a goat pasture and it's getting wet.
00:18The government plans to build abandoned facilities so that it won't be wasted, according to the special report of Salima Refran.
00:25Next operations.
00:31If you're not the one who lied.
00:35And on the left and right, investigation.
00:37Did you go to the park?
00:39The Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators or POGOs are disappearing.
00:44We need to stop this chaos in our society and strengthen our country.
00:51Effective today, all POGOs are banned.
00:58A few months after the discovery, this is what the Pogo Hub in Bamban, Tarlac, looks like.
01:03The town of the former mayor, Alice Gu, who was involved in the Pogo operations in the country.
01:09The compound is as wide as a ghost town.
01:12The former lively place is now full of grass.
01:17It's also full of luxury cars.
01:21Some of them are already flat.
01:24One of the most famous parts of this Baufu compound is their Olympic-sized swimming pool.
01:30For now, it has no water and it's dirty because it's not maintained anymore.
01:35There's no supply of water and electricity here in the area.
01:40Inside the villas, plants are dying.
01:44And underneath, there's a secret tunnel.
01:48One of the common things discovered in illegal POGOs,
01:52like these secret rooms, secret pools,
01:56here in Baufu, they have a network of tunnels
02:00that can enter from the wine cellar of one of the villas through a secret door.
02:04When you enter, here it is.
02:08It's a steel door.
02:10When you enter the pool, it leads to the other villas.
02:15The offices themselves are abandoned.
02:18Some of these partitions were also destroyed.
02:21The items, including food and garbage, were scattered by POGO workers.
02:29The POGO hub in Borac, Pampanga, is also silent.
02:32A few hours before the lock-in of this Lucky South 99,
02:35this road is almost full of POGO workers who are moving around.
02:41For now, there are almost no people.
02:44Only a few police officers are guarding this place.
02:50POGO workers are not the only ones who can be seen here.
02:52It's also the goats that are being fed by the high grass.
02:57The work areas and the villas of the bosses are well guarded.
03:02But we were allowed to enter one of the dormitories.
03:06Since the raid, this place has not been seen by the public.
03:09In fact, this area is already full of goats.
03:13And if you look at the rooms,
03:16they are scattered and messy
03:19because this is how the POGO workers left their dormitories.
03:24Here on this side, the smell is a bit different.
03:28That's because there are also left-over food that is rotting at this time.
03:36According to the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission of Paok,
03:398 large POGO hubs were raided since 2022.
03:43All of these are now empty.
03:46Under the preservation order,
03:48the properties of the POGO that were raided,
03:50like this BAUFU compound,
03:52means that it is under the care of the government
03:56while they are hearing the forfeiture case for these.
04:00Because in our Human Trafficking Law,
04:02there is a provision that the instruments and proceeds of the crime,
04:06so the equipment and earnings from the crimes of human trafficking,
04:10can be forfeited to the state
04:14so that the victims of human trafficking can benefit.
04:21What we are thinking here is for the government to benefit.
04:25Like those large POGO hubs,
04:29they can be used as schools,
04:31they can be used as camps or training centers.
04:36For example, if our case wins
04:40and it becomes a property of the government,
04:42it can be sold.
04:44Because the victims of human trafficking can benefit from this.
04:53One POGO hub in Pasay,
04:56Paok's Detention Facility,
04:58and the Department of Social Welfare and Development, or DSWD,
05:02as a processing center for those who are being raided.
05:06Under the supervision of the real estate consultancy firm,
05:09Lechu Property Consultants,
05:11more than 1 million square meters of office space
05:14will be allocated for the leasing of POGOs.
05:17This does not include the many landlords
05:20who sold their condo units or residential properties
05:24to foreign POGO workers.
05:26It will take 3 to 5 years
05:29for the market to stabilize again.
05:31The biggest impact of this is the sentiment of the investor.
05:37According to the Department of Finance,
05:39POGO's impact on the economy is around P99.25 billion per year.
05:45But NEDA itself said
05:48that it cannot measure the negative effect of POGO on society.
05:53At the end of the year,
05:55the Philippines will continue to close its doors to POGOs.
05:59To the left and right of the criminals,
06:01to the controversies,
06:02and to the many victims,
06:04I hope that the country has learned
06:06not to let this kind of dark industry flourish again.
06:11From Porac, Pampanga,
06:13for GMA Integrated News,
06:15I'm Nima Refrang.
06:16Stay tuned for 24 Hours.
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