2 Pinays stopped at NAIA 3

Immigration officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last Tuesday stopped two Filipinas from leaving the country after they confessed that they were illegally recruited to work abroad.

In a report to BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco, the Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section said the two passengers were intercepted at NAIA Terminal 3 before they could board their flight via AirAsia bound for Kuala Lumpur.

According to I-PROBES, during the interview, the victims initially claimed to be officemates in an information technology networking company, and they presented documents to support their claims.

However, they eventually confessed that the employment documents they presented were spurious and that they were only given to them by their recruiters, whom they met on Facebook.

The victims claimed that each of them paid P75,000 to their recruiter for processing their documents to work in Paris.

Later, the victims were immediately turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking for further investigation and assisting them in filing charges against their illegal recruiters.

With the incident, Tansingco once again warned the public to avoid "shortcuts" and not to deal with illegal recruiters instead of going through the legal process of securing the appropriate overseas work permits from the government.

The BI chief said that the victims of illegal recruiters are always at the losing end, as many of them, who were promised lucrative jobs abroad, end up returning to the Philippines empty-handed after being abandoned by their handlers.

"Don't gamble your lifelong savings by falling prey to these unscrupulous people whose only motives are to earn money at your expense," Tansingco warned.