Three Filipinos, all of them women who are suspected to be human trafficking victims, were intercepted at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) last Saturday, Oct. 7, before they could board their flight to Singapore.
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) did not identify the three women who were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for investigation and filing of charges against their recruiter.
The BI said the three women -- ages 46, 31, and 51 -- claimed they are high school friends going to Singapore on a vacation.
It said, however, that the bureau's Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section (I-PROBES) reported the women “gave inconsistent statements, which prompted the primary immigration officer to refer the trio for secondary inspection.”
“Further scrutiny of their documents revealed suspicious substance on a passport page, indicating tampering,” it said.
“It was later found that they were holding an employment visa in Malta, illegally detached from their passport,” it added.
On further investigation, the BI said the three women eventually revealed that they got their documentation “the same morning in a restaurant in Baclaran, where they were instructed to pose as tourists to Singapore while waiting for their tickets to Malta.”
It also said the three women "were promised work as room attendants in a hotel in the European country."
The BI said immigration officers found that suspected human trafficking victims "started their application in 2017, and paid a total of almost half a million pesos for their visas.”
“This modus of lifting visas from passport pages to evade immigration checks is done by big time syndicates who use special chemicals to carefully remove the visa,” said Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco.
“This was not done by small time recruiters, but by big time syndicates which operate by giving our 'kababayans' false promises,” he added.
Tansingco appealed to the public not to fall prey to human trafficking syndicates.
“Let us not resort to saying yes to these syndicates in our desire to work abroad,” he said.