BI, IACAT clamp down on human trafficking

The Bureau of Immigration is concentrating on investigating suspected human traffickers in the country, its commissioner, Norman Tansingco, said on Friday.

Tansingco said they are in close coordination with the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, or IACAT, in probing human-trafficking syndicates.

Earlier this week, the BI-NAIA reported the interception of a trafficking victim posing as an employee of the Department of Justice.

The intercepted passenger presented a travel authority with the fake signature of a DoJ official.

"We are working with the IACAT to look at how this syndicate runs," said Tansingco. "We have leads on big-time traffickers so that they can be arrested and jailed," he added.

On 12 October, the BI-NAIA reported intercepting 17 trafficked persons as they attempted to depart the country bound for Hong Kong as "employees" of a trading company.

However, during the secondary BI inspection, it was confirmed that they did not know each other, and their documents were merely handed to them by an agency that instructed them to pose as officemates.

On 6 October, the BI officers at NAIA Terminal 3 also stopped six Filipino passengers, including four illegal recruitment victims and their two couriers, who also attempted to depart the country disguised as tourists.

The six attempted to board a Cebu Pacific flight to Bangkok en route to their final destination in the United Arab Emirates, where they were supposed to work as undocumented contract workers.

They were accompanied by their handlers, who reportedly handed them dubious employment documents to make it appear that they were gainfully employed by a local company.

"We highly suspect that they have also been recruited illegally to work abroad; hence, they were given fake documents to present to immigration," Tansingco said.