Filipinos will make collaborators sorry

It’s so easy for Chinese criminals to lure Filipino officials. Investigators narrate how:

First, the enemies target the “ideal” bureaucrat – unpatriotic, corrupt. They treat him to a lavish lunch. He knows it’s illegal. He must meet with transactors only in his agency. The law forbids taking gifts in cash or kind. If he must accept one for Christmas or birthday, the value shouldn’t exceed P5,000.

But he can’t help salivating over wagyu and abalone. Patay-gutom.

Second, they take him out drinking. A bar girl is made to sit beside him with special instructions. Drunk, he forgets his wife and kids. Taking the hotel key, he even poses for a photo.

He has broken two laws: bribery and prostitution. Weak, marupok.

Last, the gambling lords, fake students, spies hand him a thick wad of cash. He illicitly issues them immigrant and retiree visas, birth and exchange-student certificates, driving and gun licenses, business and environment permits, police and Customs clearances, building and fire inspections, land titles and thousands of registered SIMs.

He advises them on who else to pay off. Allows illegal entrants, cyberscam gear, Chinese military wear. Provides uniformed bodyguards and mail-order brides with whom aliens can co-own lands. He even fixes judges and lawmakers for them. Maitim na ang buto.

Legitimately naturalized Chinese-Filipinos resent the traitor. They worked hard for citizenship. The illegals have it easy.

Tentacles have fattened. Chinese gambling operators once tried to buy off Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission raiders. PAOCC deputies rejected the bribe and took the arrestees to headquarters. Chinese cohorts who followed them to offer bigger sums were jailed too. They thought everyone’s for sale.

Heartstrings are tugged. After the March 14 raid in the Bamban gambling hub, PAOCC prepared to deport the Chinese minions. “Filipina partners with wailing infants pleaded for them,” Usec. Gilbert Cruz recalls. “We had to house and feed them along with the deportees.”

Have rogues infiltrated PAOCC? On June 14, while Cruz was securing a court search warrant, Chinese bosses and staff began to flee the Porac gambling enclave. “I ordered my men to hold the