Illegal recruiters tell victims to fabricate stories to get through immigration

On Sunday afternoon, Commissioner Norman Tansingco of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) disclosed that unlawful recruiters are increasingly turning to fabricating stories for their victims to tell immigration officials.

Tansingco shared that on November 14 at Ninoy Aquino International Airport NAIA Terminal 1, a female victim attempted to board a Philippine Airlines flight bound for Singapore.

The BI Chief added that their officers noted that the victim presented return credentials in someone else's name. The victim was required by her recruiter to claim that she was working for a merchandise company in the Philippines, and they even provided her with fake bank documents with grammatical errors.

Later, BI-NAIA officials found she was recruited to work as an entertainer in a bar in Singapore.

Tansingco also said that the following day, another female victim claimed to be a winner of a raffle conducted by a travel agency.

According to the BI Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section at Clark International Airport, the victim attempted to board an Eva Air trip to Singapore. The victim reportedly claimed that she had won a raffle contest sponsored by a Dubai-based travel agency.

She said that as the raffle winner, she was given a vacation package that included a plane ticket and a three-day hotel stay in the mentioned city-state.

However, when asked about basic details about the contest, she was not familiar with how she won or how she was declared a winner.

Reacting to the incidents, Tansingco said it was apparent that agencies are resorting to providing victims with stories to pose as regular tourists to countries other than their final work destinations.

"There have been many cases of illegal recruitment victims who were initially sent as tourists before they end up working or are flown to a third country for employment," Tansingco said.

He added that the two victims have been turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking to initiate an investigation against their recruiters.