EXPLAINER | Sanjia-Steel Corp: one among the many POGOs

The Philippine Sanjia-Steel Corporation was under investigation last September 22 due to speculations involving the aforementioned corporation and with Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) as revealed by Philippine Veterans Investment Development Corporation Industrial Authority (PHIVIDEC IA). "We are currently investigating it because we learned that the firm is linked to one of the alleged POGOs in Barangay Cugman in Cagayan de Oro City,” PHIVIDEC-IA Acting Deputy Administrator for Operations Atty. Benjamin Medrano said.

Founded in Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental in 2018, Philippine Sanjia-Steel Corporation had the objective of serving the local market in the steel industry. The company uses cutting-edge technology which is essential for their steel manufacturing and smelting. 

In Tagoloan, the company established a P800 million steel production facility.

Situated within the PHIVIDEC Industrial Estate in Barangay Baluarte, the factory occupies a land area of 22.7 hectares.

The said corporation was a recently established company, with the support of Filipino business tycoons and Chinese steel processing professionals. Officers with decades of experience in the Chinese steel sector work for the company.

The Sanjia-Steel Corporation with aims in industrial innovation, has allegedly become a place for a Chinese crime syndicate involved in drug-related crimes and POGO matters.

In a recently-concluded quad committee hearing by the House of Representatives, it was revealed that Phil-Sanjia is owned by Tony Yang, also known as Yang Jian Xin, and also registered as Antonio Lim, who is believed to be the older brother of Michael Yang, which was the former economic adviser to the past Duterte administration.

However, Sanjia-Steel released a statement stating that Yang was no longer the head of the company and they also denied the claims of smuggling and employing undocumented Chinese workers.

Tony Yang clarified that they rent a place from the PHIVIDEC in which they can store their steel products in that particular area.

Yang's team and Phividec inked a memorandum of understanding in 2018, enabling them to lease land for ₱30 per square meter. The next year, the company started construction.

"This area by PHIVIDEC is the one that we rented... so that's why we are allowed to put in our products there," he said.

In contrast, according to Rep. Dan Fernandez, Santa Rosa, Laguna; the Sanjia Steel’s wharf at Phividec has allegedly served as a drop-off point for illegal drugs and smuggled goods, including rice.

He added that since the Duterte Administration, the company has been leasing the site from the government in which it contains a port that was used to smuggle drugs, rice, and other items into the nation.

Former Iligan mayor Franklin Quijano, a fervent supporter of Duterte's 2016 presidential campaign, was in charge of overseeing the estate at the time. Jose Gabriel "Pompee" La Viña, who worked as the campaign's social media director, succeeded Quijano and was named PHIVIDEC administrator in 2020.

Prior to the current PHIVIDEC administration of Joseph Donato Bernedo, Phil-Sanjia was already included as one of their locators. Bernedo was the husband of Aimee Marcos, Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s youngest sibling.

Tony Yang was detained at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) last September 19. The said arrest also corresponds to the alleged claims that drugs and contraband were passing through the PHIVIDEC.

He also faces a deportation case for undesirability and misrepresentation, after allegedly misrepresenting himself as a Filipino and falsifying information regarding the SEC certification of Phil-Sanjia Corporation which he owns, as reported by the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC).

"It was my maternal grandfather who helped me process the birth certificate during the third or fourth year I came to the Philippines... I was not aware of this, maybe he thinks it was for my convenience so I can build a business here.” Yang admitted.

According to Tony Yang's testimony to the Senate, he entered the Philippines in 1998 or 1999, making him 28 or 29 years old at the time according to the date of birth on his Chinese passport.

Yang claimed he only has a Chinese passport and no Philippine one. However, under the name Antonio Lim, he purportedly was born in Misamis Oriental, according to his Filipino birth certificate. Yang conceded that this was a lie. Yang claimed on his passport that he was born in the province of Fujian in China.

In 1999, when his younger brother Michael was also in the Philippines, he met a local dignitary who was then the mayor of Davao City and eventually became President Duterte. The former president’s friendship with Yang flourished through the years when Duterte said Yang was the gateway to business with China.

The House panel has invited Yang because of his alleged involvement in a P3.6 billion narcotics bust in Pampanga, Mexico, in 2023. The incorporator of Empire 999 Realty Corporation, a warehouse in the Pampanga town where the multibillion-peso shabu was confiscated, was purportedly connected to Duterte's former economic adviser.

The House of Representatives ordered the arrest of Michael Yang last July 31, who has been absent in the legislative hearings.

About a half-hour's drive from the PHIVIDEC estate is Yang's business address, which is at the privately held Alwana Business Park in Cugman, eastern Cagayan de Oro. The Lims, a well-known Cagayan de Oro Chinese Filipino family, created the roughly 20-hectare mixed-use Alwana complex. Yang is unconnected to the Lim family.

Residential buildings, shops, offices, recreational facilities, open spaces, and greenery are all part of the gated Alwana complex. A series of warehouses held by different businesses can be seen at the back of the complex. Among them is a multi-story structure that is allegedly owned by Yang and was utilized for offshore gaming operations. 

Remarkably, Fernandez said that Yang's group's building plan that was submitted to the local government resembled the POGOs in Bamban, Tarlac.

Councilor Roger Abaday of Cagayan de Oro stated in 2020 that the municipal council was informed by a Bureau of Immigration (BI) official that approximately 2,000 Chinese employees were employed at the Alwana POGO at the time.

In addition, Yang and other Chinese people were charged by Fernandez with using their Filipino identity to operate their illegal businesses.

Since the 1970s, the organization has served as a vital focus for business, including the expansive industrial complex known as the Phividec estate. The large area was intended to support rural development while providing benefits to the nation's veterans and retirees from the armed forces.

The purpose of PHIVIDEC-IA is to support and encourage social and economic development. The organization was founded on August 13, 1974 under the Presidential Decree No. 538, with its first industrial region, the Misamis Oriental estate. The aforementioned estate is crucial to the corporation's goal of creating industrial zones all throughout the nation.

In addition, JV Vasallo, the technical director of Department of Labor and Employment in Northern Mindanao, said that there were no signs of any offshore gaming activities present in the said facility.