Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Barbers
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
MANILA, Philippines — A certain Willie Ong, believed to be the owner of the warehouse in Pampanga, used to store illegal drugs, used a fake Filipino identity, and was able to purchase titles of land, Surigao del Norte 2nd District Rep. Robert Ace Barbers said.
Barbers’s opening speech at the start of the House committee on dangerous drugs hearing on Wednesday recapped the past hearings before mentioning recent discoveries about Ong.
According to Barbers, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) confirmed that an entry for a Willie Ong — owner of Empire 999 Realty Corporation which then owns the warehouse — exists through a certification issued by a Local Civil Registrar in Meycauayan, Bulacan, dated August 31, 2001.
The certification states that Ong was supposedly born in the municipality on May 29, 1977 — 24 years before the certification was registered. However, Barbers noted that the current Local Civil Registrar of Meycauayan showed that there is no record under Willy Ong, as the entry specified was for another person.
“Upon the committee’s initiative, the new and acting Local Civil Registrar of Meycauayan issued a certification dated May 7, 2024 stating that no record exists under the name Willie Ong, allegedly born on May 29, 1977 with Registry No. 127 for the year 1977. Said Registry No. 127 lists another person born on a different date,” Barbers, chair of the committee, said.
“The same Willie Ong with birthday on May 29, 1977 was able to secure a Philippine passport which he has renewed several times, the last being in July 2019, valid until 2029. How he was able to get one remains a mystery. At least we were able to find serious lapses in our agencies’ security systems and processes,” he added.
Barbers questioned why Ong — whose real identity is believed to be Cai Qimeng as he had the same photograph — was able to amass properties and own shares in companies even if he was a Chinese national.
“Upon very careful examination by the Bureau of Immigration, the Philippine passport that Willie Ong possesses was never used,” Barbers said. “However, another person of Chinese nationality with the name of Cai Qimeng, born on July 24, 1977, departed for Hongkong on October 10, 2023, the day after we started this investigation.”
“If these three are not Filipinos, they are not allowed by law to own lands in the Philippines, neither is Empire 999, for not being 60 percent Filipino owned. Thus, all land acquisitions by the corporation and by these three Chinese individuals must be invalidated and forfeited in favor of the government. To date, Empire 999 Realty and its individual incorporators have amassed more or less 292 titled lands, amounting to hundreds if not thousands of hectares, in Pampanga alone,” he added.
In September 2023, the Bureau of Customs and other partner agencies, such as the National Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, allowed a shipment arriving at the Port of Subic from Thailand to be delivered to its destination.
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Authorities then tracked it down to a warehouse in Mexico, Pampanga. When the House panel started a probe of the drug bust upon a resolution from Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales Jr., it was discovered that the warehouse used to be owned by former Mexico town mayor Teddy Tumang’s brother.
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It was revealed too that Empire 999 Realty Corporation bought it from Tumang’s brother.
Earlier, the House committee also asked former presidential economic adviser Michael Yang to reveal his reason for not attending the congressional probe. Yang was asked to shed light on his involvement in the issue, after it was revealed that his translator, Lincoln Ong, was part of Empire 999.