The following is content posted on social media by Ramon "Mon" Teshiba Tulfo Jr., the eldest of the famous Tulfo siblings and special envoy for public diplomacy to China during the Duterte era.
"Businessman and philanthropist Kim Wong bid farewell to his 18,000 Filipino employees at Island Cove, providing them with a severance pay totaling 3 billion pesos. It's important to repeat, it's 3 billion pesos, not 3 million pesos.
For this Tsinoy, who treats his employees like his own children or siblings, parting with his Filipino and mainland Chinese employees must have been heartbreaking.
I witnessed Kim Wong grow from a simple waiter in 1980 to a billionaire today, operating a legal online gambling park on Island Cove.
On November 30, Kim Wong closed his cash cow, a month earlier than the December 31 deadline set by Malacañang Palace for all legal and illegal online gambling operations.
Yes, that's Kim Wong! A few years ago, after learning that the money (paid to him as gambling debt) was from illegal sources, he voluntarily returned 700 million pesos from the largest online heist in history.
Editor's note: He refers to Kim Wong's involvement in the February 2016 Lunar New Year's Bangladesh central bank heist (also known as the Bangladesh Bank cyber heist), where, after the Philippine government intervened in the investigation, he proactively returned part of the stolen money; the reason why the Philippines was involved is that the hackers who robbed the Bangladesh central bank had prepared to launder the money in the Philippines; several casinos in Manila Entertainment City, especially Solaire Resort & Casino, were the laundering sites for the $81 million stolen.
Kim Wong has made substantial donations to charitable causes, including spending 200 million pesos for the residents of Marawi whose homes were destroyed during the 2018 Battle of Marawi.
But honestly, he would definitely be mad at me for revealing his charitable actions.
Editor's note: Marawi is the capital of Lanao del Sur province on Mindanao Island, located on the north shore of Lake Lanao, the largest lake on the island; on May 23, 2017, an Islamic terrorist organization took over the small city and held it against the Philippine military for more than five months.
You see, Kim Wong and I have been friends since he was a waiter and I was a criminal case investigative journalist."
Kim Wong is certainly wealthy enough to rival nations, but even for such a tycoon, handing out 3 billion pesos in cash to lay off employees is an undeniable act of kindness. Of course, you can say Kim Wong's money is not clean. But even so, you cannot deny Kim Wong's righteousness.
3 billion pesos, divided among 18,000 employees, each receives 166,666.6 pesos. This is not a small amount of money, whether in the eyes of Filipino or Chinese workers.
Of course, Kim Wong was able to give face to the Remulla brothers and little Marcos for a reason. He must be able to receive corresponding policy compensation from the Philippine government. By the way, the Remulla brothers are currently the Philippine government's Minister of Justice and Minister of the Interior, and Kim Wong's gambling island was previously purchased from their family.
