Mary Ong (born 1 September 1956) is a Filipina former 14K Triad "Big Sister" () and money launderer who worked as an informant to the Hong Kong Police Force in the 1980's before being recruited as a Philippine National Police undercover agent by Ping Lacson in 1993, where she operated under the codename "Rosebud". Ong later entered the witness protection program after agreeing to testify against Lacson about his alleged involvement in crimes such as the 1998 Manila blackmail incident. Ong would go onto testify at a series of sensational Philippine Senate hearings to accuse senior PNP officers of trafficking mulit-ton shipments of methamphetamine while running a kidnap-for-randsom scheme that resulted in several summary executions, while Ong was accused herself of being a rouge agent playing both sides and seeking immunity from prosecution for her own involvement in serious organised crime as well as protection from rival drug traffickers she had double crossed. Ong's unprecedented whistleblowing helped to expose corruption in the highest echelons of the Philippine government, with her testimony directly negatively affecting Lacson's approval rating and the resulting outcome of the 2004 Philippine presidential election.
Early life Mary Ong was born to an ethnic Chinese-Filipino ("Tsinoy") family in the Binondo district of Manila. Ong was the second child of Buan Ong and Ogay Lee Chua, who both migrated from mainland China to the Philippines as teenagers. Her father Buan ran an auto parts store from the ground floor of their house. Raised as a Catholic, Ong was noted as being a bright student at the Immaculate Conception Academy of Manila with a gift for bookkeeping. After leaving school, Ong obtained a MBA from the University of Santo Tomas and in 1979 started a decades long career in the Binondo Central Bank. Ong's main role with Binondo Central Bank was to reconcile transnational US dollar transactions during an era of Marcos dictatorship enforced foreign exchange controls, which allowed her to cultivate connections while on business trips to British Hong Kong and the wider Pearl River Delta region.
Criminal career Between 1979 and 1991, Ong laundered proceeds of crime worth billions of US dollars for various Triad syndicates in British Hong Kong, as well as smuggling firearms for 14K Triad members based out of the Hotel Lisboa in Portuguese Macau. Ong was a designated Triad "Big Sister" who ran her own crew of money mules between Hong Kong and Manila. Ong also worked as an informant for the Royal Hong Kong Police Narcotics Bureau in the 1980's.
In September 1992, Ong was arrested on drug trafficking charges in the Philippines for the attempted importation from Hong Kong via Ninoy Aquino International Airport of 22 kilograms of methamphetamine, and facing a potential death sentence agreed to become an undercover agent for then senior police official Ping Lacson the following year in return for her release from pre-trial detention. Ong would later claim Lacson specifically hired her as she could speak fluent Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese and Hokkien from her time working throughout East Asia as a Binondo Central Bank official. The criminal case against Ong was eventually dismissed after the prosecution's chief witness and his lawyer were shot dead outside the Magallanes Shopping Center in Makati by Lacson associate Reynaldo Berroya.
Officially an agent of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, Ong would go onto act as an agent provocateur to set up various 14K Triad drug traffickers operating out of Metro Manila in sting operations organized by the Philippine National Police for a flat fee of $US40,000 per operation. Although the reward money allowed her to live an extravagant life and rent a mansion in the exclusive Greenhills district, Ong later discovered that her fees came from illegal sources such as rival traffickers wanting to get rid of a competitor, seized methamphetamine that had been resold by corrupt police officers, and ransoms paid for the individuals arrested in the stings. After purportedly witnessing PNP Superintendent John Campos (who was both her agent handler and common-law husband) personally torturing kidnap victims at a vacant condominium unit she owned at Bayview Garden Homes on Roxas Boulevard, Ong became disillusioned with her role as a PAOCTF agent and decided to become a whistleblower on corruption within the PNP, which culminated in her testifying before the Philippine Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs.
Ong also claimed her relationship with Campos, who was 10 years her junior, had started to break down after he became addicted to the drugs he sized during police stings, and he was increasingly committing acts of domestic violence while high on methamphetamine. The final straw for Ong came in late May 1999 when as the result of a turf war she was abducted and blindfolded by rouge National Bureau of Investigation agent Martin Soriano, who was allegedly a drug trafficking rival of Campos, from Quezon City while attempting to retrieve money for a drug deal, and after begging for her life having being beaten she was later dumped in a rural area of San Mateo, Rizal. NBI agent Soriano was eventually sentenced to life in prison for the 2005 kidnapping of Carolyn Guillen from the Ambassador Hotel in Malate, Manila.
Whistleblower Ong proceeded to make several claims regarding corruption in the PNP, narrating how Lacson had allegedly directed senior officer Francisco Villaroman to kidnap and then extort several Hong Konger suspected drug traffickers in the late 1990's. Ong first appeared anonymously in silhouette during a TV news interview to accuse Lacson of engaging in criminality during his time as PAOCTF commanding officer. In response to Lacson's challenge to publicly accuse him, Ong held a press conference on 25 November 2000 to repeat her accusations, also revealing that the Archbishop of Manila Jaime Sin had offered her sanctuary after senior PNP officer Reynaldo Acop had sent her death threats in relation to her whistleblowing.
In January 2001, Ong submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman a 22 page length sworn statement against high-ranking PNP officials such as Ping Lacson and his then deputy Michael Ray Aquino, alleging their involvement in drug trafficking, kidnapping for ransom and murder. The sworn statement specifically named Lacson, with Reynaldo Acop and John Campos his alleged accomplices, as the "principal by inducement" regarding the May 1998 purchase and subsequent distribution of 15 kilograms of methamphetamine worth ₱4.5 million. In March 2001, the National Bureau of Investigation recommended criminal charges be filed against Lacson and his co-accused for serious crimes such as:
the kidnapping for ransom of Zeng Jia Xuan Hong Zhen Quiao Zeng Kang Pang James Wong the kidnapping for ransom and subsequent murder of Chong Hiu Ming Wong Kam Chong
In May 2001, Lacson and 13 other individuals were subpoenaed by the Philippines Department of Justice to answer charges related to the kidnapping and murder of individuals identified in the earlier NBI investigation. In early August 2001, Ong's personal bodyguard Dominador "Teng" Bartolata was ambushed outside a gas station in Greenhills, San Juan by a team of PNP officers and assaulted by John Campos in an effort to make him reveal the safehouse Ong and her children were hiding in.
Philippine Senate hearings At a late August 2001 Senate of the Philippines hearing on illegal drug trafficking, Ong asserted that Ping Lacson virtually turned the PNP headquarters at Camp Crame into the national distribution center for narcotics, claiming that approximately 8,000 kilograms of methamphetamine purchased from Hong Kong based Triads were distributed on a monthly basis by corrupt police officers in the late 1990's. Ong testified that she often flew out to Hong Kong to negotiate major drug deals between Triad bosses and rouge PNP officers, producing an airline manifest as evidence that Lacson traveled to Hong Kong in the company of fugitive Superintendent Michael Ray Aquino at relevant times.
As per Ongs telling, on one occasion Superintendent Francisco Roman gave her ₱2 million in cash as a down payment for drugs, which she routed via Binondo Central Bank to suppliers in Hong Kong. The narcotics were thereafter handed over in hotel carpark in Malate, after which they were taken to Camp Crame and passed onto ethnic Chinese detainees being held on illegal drug charges to sell on the officer's behalf. Ong estimated an entire 8,000 kilogram shipment would be sold for ₱72 billion, of which ₱24 billion (equivalent at the time to approximately $600 million US dollars) was retained by senior police officers and the rest wired to the suppliers in Hong Kong. Ong claimed all payments were made through Binondo Central Bank, and that the profits were split between Lacson, Superintendent John Campos, and Chief Superintendent Reynaldo Acop.
Ong's allegations were partially corroborated by witness Rebecca Agana, who testified to having been coerced into selling 300 grams of methamphetamine on behalf of Camp Crame police officers after her arrest by anti-narcotics agents in 1998, in addition to witness PNP Officer Mabini Rosale, who testified to being ordered by Campos to transport several consignments of methamphetamine totalling 20 kilograms to San Pedro, Laguna based PNP officer Francis Duran for further distribution.
Philippine Anti-Graft Court hearings Ong also testified in September 2001 at the Philippine Anti-Graft Court that in December 1998 she set up a number of alleged 14K Triad members (Lu Shao Min, Wang Jin Luan, Jin Plao Wang Chua, Li Jiaz Hu, Ah Chun, and Eduardo Ling Hing Ong) to be arrested in a PNP sting operation in an apartment at 62 Maria Clara Street in Quezon City, after which PNP Chief Superintendent Reynaldo Acop directed her to travel to Hong Kong to negotiate a ransom of ₱3 million and 10 kilograms of methamphetamine with senior Triad member Chong Hui Ming for their release. The men had been taken into custody after 30 grams of methamphetamine and several unlicensed firearms were discovered in their apartment.Ong was able to present phone records between herself, PAOCTF members Superintendent Francisco Villaroman and Superintendent John Campos to back up her claims of negotiations in Hong Kong, while her brother Peter Ong, who acted as her chauffeur, testified to personally witnessing the surveillance of suspected drug traffickers in Manila and the subsequent PNP arrest operations. After the ransom and 10 kgs of drugs were allegedly handed over, three of the group (Eduardo Hong Ling Ong, Ah Chun, Li Jiaz Hu) were released after posting bail, and their criminal case was eventually dismissed a few months later after the arresting officers failed to appear in court for the preliminary hearing.
Witness Remus Garganera backed up Ong's testimony by claiming to have accompanied John Campos when ₱3 million was withdrawn from a Metrobank branch on Shaw Boulevard, after which they brought the money to Camp Vicente Lim, where the cash was split up between Acop, Villaroman, and the rest of the PAOCTF team. Garganera further claimed that the 10 kgs of methamphetamine was handed over to Campos at his house in Parañaque by Major Abogado, after which it was broken down into single kilogram bricks for resale. Garganera also testified that Calvin Wong was held hostage in Campos’s house in Parañaque in order to extort money from his Triad boss Chong Hiu Ming, before one night being taken away by PNP Inspector Medel Poñe. Garganera further claimed that when he and Campos seen a TV news report a couple of weeks later about a dismembered body being found in Cavite, Campos remarked that it must have been Calvin Wong's.