FIVE outbound overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were stopped from boarding their plane at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) for presenting spurious travel documents.
Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco said his operatives intercepted four women bound for Bangkok, Thailand and a male passenger intending to leave for Singapore.
Tansingco said the five prospective OFWs presented dubious employment documents and canceled hotel bookings.
The group reportedly lied about the nature of their jobs here and were very inconsistent in their answers to questions asked by the Immigration agents. Vito Barcelo
“We suspect that the four Bangkok-bound passengers are prone to become trafficking victims as they admitted they were hired to work in Chiang Rai province which borders Thailand with Myanmar, a known destination of trafficking victims recruited by crypto scam operators,” the BI chief added.
“One of them even claimed to work as a news and current events researcher from a major news network,” Tansingco said.
The five passengers eventually admitted that they were recruited to work as office staff in Thailand, and were offered a salary of P30,000.
As for the Singapore-bound passenger, he eventually confessed that he was hired to work as an entertainer in a nightclub at the city-state.
The women were later turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for further investigation.
“Thanks to the vigilance of our officers at the NAIA, we were able to again rescue five of our countrymen from being abused and exploited in foreign lands,” Tansingco said.