Why has the Philippines become what it is today?

Over the past decade, the Philippines was once known for its active gray industry, with practitioners calling themselves "cultural people" and emphasizing winning through intellect and diligence. However, today the Philippines has been labeled with tags such as "kidnapping" and "kidney harvesting." The reasons for this change mainly include:

1. Shift of Black Industry Personnel from the Golden Triangle

The Golden Triangle area has long been under the control of warlords, rampant with illegal gambling, soft detention gambling, kidnapping for ransom, fraud, and drug trafficking. However, with China's severe crackdown on cross-border fraud and kidnapping, the black industry in this region has gradually lost its footing, and many practitioners have moved to places like the Philippines and Dubai. These practitioners, adhering to a shortsighted style of "killing the goose that lays the golden eggs," have rapidly deteriorated the employment environment for Chinese in the Philippines.

2. No Way Out for the Casino Underworld

The pandemic has severely hit the Philippine gambling tourism industry, and underworld organizations operating usury within casinos have found themselves in a predicament with nothing to do. In the 2021 OKADA shooting incident, the perpetrators were those who had previously engaged in usury in casinos. As casino business declined, the underworld's reliance on "violence" as a means of survival had nowhere to be applied, leading them to take risks and further exacerbating security issues in the Philippines.

3. Pandemic-Induced Wave of Business Closures

During the pandemic, a large number of gambling companies in the Philippines went bankrupt, triggering a severe unemployment wave. Many unemployed individuals stranded in the Philippines due to the pandemic were forced to choose between hunger and crime, with some opting for the latter. It is understood that many criminal cases were committed by acquaintances, reflecting the impact of the unemployment wave on social security.

4. Crackdown on the Industry Leading to Survival Difficulties

In recent years, the Chinese government has strongly cracked down on the offshore gambling industry. The "card-cutting operation" severed the funding chain, directly destroying the lifeline of the industry, causing a large number of gambling companies to go bankrupt. Against this backdrop, the industry has gradually shifted from legal gambling to fraud, park scams, and kidnapping scams, completing this vicious transformation in just four years. Bad money drives out good, plunging the entire industry into a vicious cycle.

5. Philippine Government's Indifference to the Rights and Interests of Chinese

The Philippine judiciary has long turned a blind eye to the infringements suffered by Chinese in the Philippines, making the country gradually resemble the early Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong, a "lawless zone." In this lawless environment, violence becomes the rule that decides everything, and the Philippine government's focus remains limited to whether it harms the interests of its own citizens, with limited efforts to combat crimes involving Chinese, further fostering unlawful acts.

Conclusion

Between survival and morality, human fragility is fully exposed. When having enough to eat becomes the top priority, morality is thrown to the wayside; when faced with survival difficulties, the morally depraved's choice is obvious. The land of the Philippines, once seen as a "gray industry paradise," has rapidly evolved into a "land of extreme evil" over a decade. Although the Philippine government has begun to tighten supervision from the visa entry point, the corrupt immigration management and judicial system still provide fertile ground for crime.