Sen. Risa Hontiveros —Noy Morcoso/INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Tuesday urged President Marcos to veto a measure granting Philippine citizenship to a Chinese businessman allegedly linked to the financier of the raided Philippine offshore gaming operator (Pogo) complex in Bamban, Tarlac province, and a self-confessed Chinese spy detained in Thailand.

“The President should immediately veto the bill granting Filipino citizenship to Chinese national Li Duan Wang,” Hontiveros told the Inquirer.

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“If the President truly wants the Pogo ban to be effective, I hope people who are close associates of big-time Pogo actors should not be allowed to become Filipinos,” she said.

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Hontiveros made the appeal to Marcos a day after the Senate voted 19-1 to approve the bill making Li a naturalized Filipino.

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Senate Majority Leader Francis Tolentino had defended and sponsored House Bill No. 8839, which was originally authored by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda and Negros Occidental Rep. Juliet Marie Ferrer.

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Unlike other measures that bestowed Filipino citizenship to foreign-born individuals, the bill filed by Salceda and Ferrer did not cite even a single reason why Li’s application for naturalization should be approved.

“You’re just traumatized when you have these losses. At some point, you’re just glad you’re alive,” said Don Hornstein, an insurance law expert at the University of North Carolina. “And then, you have to turn to the business side of this. It’s tough.”

AirportWatch.PH spokesperson Ren delos Santos said in a statement, “Instead of delivering on its promise to modernize the airport, the DOTr (Department of Transportation) has implemented what feels like a cash grab.”

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“Li Duan Wang is hereby granted Philippine citizenship with all the rights, privileges and prerogatives, as well as the duties and obligations appurtenant thereto, under the Constitution and the laws of the Republic of the Philippines,” the bill read in part.

In opposing the measure, Hontiveros claimed that Li had ties with Duanren Wu, a Chinese fugitive who had supposedly financed the construction of the Pogo hub allegedly owned by dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo.

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Duanren also partly owned Whirlwind Corp., which bought the property that hosted a similar offshore gaming complex in Porac, Pampanga.

Authorities had suspected that Duanren helped Guo when she and her associates fled to Indonesia last year to evade criminal prosecution and the Senate inquiry into Pogo-related crimes.

“I do not judge Li Duan Wang as guilty of any crime, but these red flags are enough to prevent him from being granted Filipino citizenship so easily,” Hontiveros said during the plenary session on Monday.

“In my firm belief, what the government should do is investigate Li Duan Wang, not pass a law to treat him as one of us,” she stressed.

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The senator also said that one of Li’s businesses was believed to be a subsidiary of Yatai Spatamabet, a company in Pasay City owned by She Zhijiang, a Chinese national who claimed to be a Chinese spy.

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