Hacker News Reader

Comment by amiga386 | Hacker News Reader

The Philippines (under Duterte) said to Chinese criminals: Feel free to base your operations here and rip off your fellow Chinese, but don't rip off us Filipinos.

Then these POGO centres started scamming locals and Chinese alike, and staffed themselves with scam victims, using blackmail and torture to force them to work there and commit fraud.

Then one victim escaped:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68562643

And then the whole world unraveled for local town mayor and Chinese spy, Alice Guo (that's not even her real name)

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/04/asia/philippines-alice-gu...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mnyrm8739o

View on HN

Philippines is corrupt to the core as well, from courts to police to civilians. So the real reason why POGOs were thrown out of the country was that the didn't pay off the right people. Nothing gets done in Philippines without bribes.

I live here my whole life for over 40 years, anecdotal I know, but I have only encountered one corrupt scenario in my lifetime. Nothing gets done is just too dramatic.

Correct, I should have specified it applies to more significant events. Simple paperwork is typically not an issue. Lived there for 10 years and was amazed at how even relatively small cases aren't handled honestly. For example when my vehicle was hit, the police registers the crash and and the driver afterwards flees, the courts determined that they cannot say who was driving. Absurd in any civilised country as then the vehicle owner is responsible or at least interviewed. This is my personal experience, one of quite a few, not hearsay.

I also had friends dealing with legal for multinationals, for things to work you needed to know the right people or pay the right people. Otherwise your licenses and approvals would mysteriously simply never be processed.

> So the real reason why POGOs were thrown out of the country was that the didn't pay off the right people

They did pay the right people. It's just that the "right people" lost the presidency in 2022.

Like any other nation, the right people changes every election. Especially in nations with poor leadership.

I guess Asia is lucky that the gangs haven’t learned that you have to pay everyone in power, and everyone who could come to power. As soon as your gangs and mafias learn that, you’ll be as hosed as we are in the US. And your gangs and mafias will all of a sudden become “corporations”.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com