A Filipina who was reportedly promised P500,000  in a “mail order bride” scheme has been intercepted at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) and barred from boarding her flight to Guangshou, China.

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) did not name the Filipina in its statement issued on Friday, March 29. 

Victims of "mail order bride" scheme "are made to pretend to be the spouses of foreign nationals but they end up as pseudo wives doing domestic work in their destinations."

In 2016, the Philippines enacted Republic Act No. 10906 which provides "stronger measures against unlawful practices, businesses, and schemes of matching and offering Filipinos to foreign nationals for purposes of marriage or common law partnership. RA 10906 repealed RA 6955, the Anti-Mail Order Bride law, enacted in 1990.

Citing the report from its Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section (I-PROBES), the BI said the Filipina initially claimed to be going to China to join her Chinese husband.

It said she presented a marriage certificate as proof of her marriage last January in Pasig City.  She added the marriage ceremony was officiated by a female church preacher, it also said.

But the BI said the photograph of the supposed wedding shows "the solemnizing officer appears to be a man.”

“Due to the numerous inconsistencies pointed out to her, she admitted that the marriage was fake, and that it was arranged by a fixer who is in the business of recruiting Filipinas who are willing to become brides to Chinese nationals,” the bureau said. 

It said the Filipina "confessed that prior to the trip of her ‘husband’ to the Philippines, the two had not yet met and neither have they entered into a long-distance relationship as lovers."

It added that the Filipina " was promised by her recruiter she would receive P500,000 upon her arrival in China in exchange for marrying her foreign spouse.”