Philippine authorities have reportedly uncovered secret hospitals operating illegally in the country, that provide plastic surgery services to fugitives, scam centre workers, and illegal online casino operators.
The hospitals were said to be disguised as regular clinics offering advanced medical treatments, including hair transplants, dental implants, and skin whitening IV drips, to help clients evade arrest and conceal their identities.
Authorities, who were tipped off on the existence of the illegal hospital in Pasay City, found a hemodialysis machine, suggesting that the facility, which was about 400 sqm, offered various medical treatments in addition to plastic surgery.
“You can create an entirely new person out of those,” a spokesman for the Presidential Anti-Organised Crime Commission (PAOCC), Winston John Casio, told the BBC.
“They look like regular clinics on the outside, but once you enter, you’ll be shocked by the type of technology they have.”
Casio, however, disclosed that two of such illegal hospitals could be shut down “in the coming weeks” after police raided the first one in Manila’s southern suburbs in May.
Hair transplant tools, dental implants and skin whitening IV drips were seized from the hospital in Pasay City two months ago.
The two illegal hospitals under surveillance are believed to be four times larger than the one in Pasay, authorities said.
The Pasay raid resulted in the arrest of three doctors (two from Vietnam and one from China), a Chinese chemist and a Vietnamese nurse, none of whom were licenced to practise in the Philippines.
According to Casio, the clients of these hospitals include individuals working illegally in online casinos, known as Pogos (Philippine Online Gaming Operations), which have been linked to criminal activities such as telephone scams and human trafficking.
Online casinos or Pogos, are believed to cater to players in mainland China, where gambling is illegal.
Casio told the BBC that “these Pogo hospitals don’t ask for the proper identification cards… You could be a fugitive, or you could be an illegal alien in the Philippines.”
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, has mounted a crackdown on Pogos, citing their criminal links.
“The president does not want the Philippines to be painted as a ‘scam hub’ and has given us a directive to go after scam farms because of how they have been targeting large numbers of people from all over the world,” Casio said.
Calls to ban Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos) have yet to be discussed in the cabinet, said National Economic Development Authority (Neda) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan on Tuesday.
“Wala (None). We haven’t really talked about it in the sense of, you know — I mean, at the level of the economic managers, I’m not quite aware if there are other meetings,” said Balisacan in a Palace briefing on Tuesday.
However, Balisacan, for his part, reinforced his sentiment of being against Pogos, stating that the government’s attention should instead be focused on “generating high-quality jobs.”
“And nothing in creating gambling jobs is one of what I define as good jobs… because I think that there are a lot of other opportunities for the country, for the economy, and for our workers, and we can focus on those,” he said.
Meanwhile, Labour Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma said the Department of Labour and Employment (DOLE) has already finished “profiling” workers who may lose their jobs should the government decide to ban Pogos.
The department previously projected around 22,000 job losses in Metro Manila should the government adopt proposals from lawmakers and other groups to close down Pogos.
