PH gov't to continue crackdown on scam hubs

MANILA – The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday said the government will continue to go after scam hubs in the country, noting that for the eleventh year, the Philippines has kept its Tier One ranking in the U.S. State Department’s list of countries that have addressed human trafficking.

Speaking during the DOJ’s regular weekly press briefing, Justice Undersecretary Nicholas Ty said the development is a notable achievement for the government’s counter-trafficking efforts.

“Dito sa laban natin kontra human trafficking. Isang malaking karangalan 'to, 'no? Kung hindi nagkakamali sa out of 188 countries na in-evaluate ng US State Department, 36 lamang ang nabigyan ng Tier 1 ranking, or 19 percent. 'Yung may ibang bansa, either Tier 2, Tier 2 watch list, or Tier 3 (In our efforts against human trafficking, this is a notable honor. If I am not mistaken, out of 188 countries evaluated by the U.S. State Department, only 36 made it to the Tier 1 ranking or 19%, the rest were either Tier 2 or Tier 3),” Ty said.

“Sa Southeast Asia, out of 11 countries in Southeast Asia, dalawa lang ang nabigyan nabigyan ng Tier 1 ranking (In Southeast Asia only two countries were given Tier 1 ranking), namely the Philippines and Singapore,” he added.

Tier ranking is determined by how a country fared in meeting the minimum standards in U.S. counter-trafficking laws, Ty said, adding that it is not a measure of the extent of the problem in a country but an emphasis on efforts to address trafficking.

Ty said the government continues to implement the ban declared by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Philippine Overseas Gaming Operators in the country, adding that while some continue to operate, the scale is much smaller than the original scam hubs the government shut down.

“So, the recent raids in some of these enterprises have proven to be on a smaller scale. Some of them are mom-and-pop operations; some of them are maybe just one room or something. But clearly it's still there. We're not denying that the problem still exists. But if you compare it to what we faced before, the magnitude is way, way less,” Ty said.