MANILA — A total of 16 Filipinos about to leave the country as tourists but were actually hired to work in China and the United Arab Emirates were intercepted at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) terminal 3.
The Bureau of Immigration (BI) stopped the passengers as they were about to the board their Cebu Pacific flights to Taiwan and HongKong on August 7.
The first batch, a group of 12 Filipinos mostly women, were bound for Taipei buut their final destination is the United Arab Emirates.
The four others, who were all women, were bound for HongKong to process their visas to China where they were allegedly promised employment by a Filipino-Chinese businessman.
BI-NAIA travel control and enforcement unit chief Anthony Lopez said all the passengers confessed during the questioning that they are not tourists and were recruited by a travel agency based in Manila.
The 16 passengers were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking for investigation.
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente warned Filipinos who would like to work abroad not to fall for the sweet-talk of illegal recruiters and only transact with government-accredited manpower companies. (Paul Allegre)
