President Rodrigo Duterte may have saved millions of poor Filipinos, many of who are fellow Mindanaoans, from heartbreaking trouble in the hands of alleged investment scam groups.
Amid all the hullabaloo over PhilHealth, public uproar ensued across Visayas and Mindanao as National Bureau of Investigation agents on orders of Manong Digong swooped down on several sites of suspected investment modus called “pyramiding.”
But this latest outrage is not directed toward the perpetrators of the alleged scams, instead the countless people affected condemned the raids.
This actually dramatizes the people’s desperation for quick relief or respite from lifelong poverty, particularly across Visayas and Mindanao. They have suffered long enough and falling prey to scams is a symptom of hopelessness.
That is why the people’s reaction did not surprise the NBI agents and the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group units. Such investment organizations have a following of up to five million in the South, mainly Davao provinces who have benefitted from the illegal activities, including a number of cops themselves.
Weeks since their closures, not a single complaint has been filed against Kapa Community Ministry International, headed by a certain Pastor Joel Apolinario based in General Santos City, who allegedly amassed up to P22 billion in donations. Instead, thousands of Kapa members staged a prayer rally in GenSan in time for the President’s visit. They voluntarily have given donations, also called “love offerings,” in various amounts and actually received “blessings” triple the amount they volunteered, for example P5,000 becomes P15,000 and P20,000 becomes P60,000 in a month. Housewives, OFW families, teachers, government employees as well as policemen and soldiers have joined and benefited from the investment scheme.
Though arising from questionable transactions, such cash benefits have helped alleviate financial hardships of rural folk in the provinces, giving them hope of better life by starting out small businesses like piggery, PUV tricycle, seeking employment overseas and covering hospitalization costs.
But Duterte believes the experts that Kapa members and those of other “pyramiding fronts” are merely setting themselves up for a big frustration although it appears now that it is the government that dashed their hopes to rise from financial hardship.
Kapa followers now blame controversial Pastor Apollo Quiboloy for prodding Manong Digong to order the police raids on rival Kapa ministry shortly after the elections. Duterte is unfazed, however, as long as he believes he is doing the right thing.
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, such investment groups are not duly-registered to conduct business and do not pay proper taxes. It is clear that the whole scheme is illegal and has the hallmarks of large-scale estafa.
Authorities confiscated undisclosed amount of cash from Kapa’s offices and Apolinario’s home. At least five other investment firms’ operations have been shut down in Gen. Santos City, Rizal, Cagayan Valley, Surigao, and Davao provinces.
The question is: Will the authorities allow or facilitate the refund of the people’s money?
And the bottom line is: Who can blame the poor for taking risk in quick money-making ploys, that is “too good to be true?” They resort to the quick fix.
There lies the silver lining between “false hope” and hopelessness.