House committee says Ong may be a spy

By Ruelle Albert D. Castro

The House foreign affairs committee will probe deeper into the activities of Palawan-based Chinese national Lucio Ong on suspicion that he may be acting as a spy for the Chinese government. Chinese embassy officials will be summoned in the next congressional inquiry over Chinese poaching activities in Palawan to shed light on Ong’s activities.
Committee chair Apolinario Lozada concluded following last Saturday’s inquiry that Ong was trying to deliberately mislead the committee by feigning ignorance of the local dialect and in explaining the nature of his activities in Palawan.
“There’s more than meets the eye. I direct the concerned offices to get hold of this man because I have a suspicion that he knows Tagalog and Palawan more than we do,” Lozada said.
Lozada said that Ong, whose real name is Xu Quing Jiang, may be part of the Chinese government’s network of spies who were dispatched to the world for information gathering some years back.
Ong was singled out for questioning by the committee following his reported attempt to bribe local law enforcers who have arrested a fleet of Chinese fishing boats poaching in Tubbataha reefs. Ong also intervened in previous cases of arrest of Chinese poachers in other parts of Palawan.
“Kung bakit malakas ang loob nilang pumasok is not because the Coast Guard is not doing their job, the Philippine Navy is not doing their job, the PNP is not doing their job, but because they have somebody here that is telling them what to do,” Lozada said.
Lozada ordered a tight watch on Ong as he vowed to continue the House investigation and call for another hearing within the next 15 days.
Lozada, a former Department of Foreign Affairs official who specialized in Chinese affairs said there is more to the issue than the poaching incident, and promised that he will have a talk with the Chinese embassy over the matter. During the hearing, the committee learned hat Ong first entered the country in 1985 as a tourist through a travel agency. He has never returned to China since getting married to a Filipina.
Ong told the committee that he is out of work and that he is being supported by his wife who maintains the biggest retail merchandising store in Quezon.
During questioning however, Ong admitted that the Chinese Embassy facilitated his entry in the country from his native province of Fujian Hainan.
Lozada raised suspicion about Ong’s real activities, stating that it would have been difficult for him to get out of Chine in 1985 because of standing government restrictions.
He claimed that it was hard for a Chinese in 1985 to come out of China without an order from the party leader of his/her province. He also emphasized the situation that time when the Philippine is having a hot territorial dispute with China over the Spratley’s chain of islands.
Lozada said that China had sent out many scholars as part of a “four-fold policy” of then Chinese Premier Deng Xiao Peng where they were sent to various part of the world collecting information. Committee member Loreta Ann Rosales also branded Ong “a security threat”.   ^ Top