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By Sammy Martin, Reporter
The Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in
Clark, Pampanga, has become the favorite exit point of a big sex
syndicate specializing in trafficking women for prostitution in
other countries, Vice President Noli de Castro said Thursday.
He called on concerned authorities to keep a
close watch on the airport after a composite group cracking down on
illegal job recruiters led by the Office of the Vice President
removed five female passengers from a Malaysia-bound plane on July
2, for possessing spurious travel documents.
The women had been intercepted at the airport on
a tip from a Philippine police attaché in Malaysia that illegal
recruiters are using the international airport in Clark as an exit
point for their victims.
Recently, the non-government Makabayang Aksyon
Foundation rescued five prostituted victims from a suspected sex den
in Sandakan, Malaysia, after a tip from relatives of the victims.
The victims only learned that a syndicate had
tricked them after they arrived in Sandakan and brought them to a
prostitution den, where they were forced to submit to customers.
They also claimed that there were about 200 more
Filipino women, mostly from the Pampanga and the rest of the Central
Luzon provinces, remaining in the brothel.
The five women had told investigators that they
were leaving for Malaysia as tourists. Further questioning, though,
prompted them to admit that they were actually going to work in
Kuala Lumpur as domestic helpers.
They were blocked from boarding an Air Asia
flight to the Malaysian capital by the composite group from the
Office of the Vice President, Philippine National Police, Bureau of
Immigration and Philippine Overseas Employment Authority.
De Castro said the victims were not carrying any
pocket money when they were stopped, thus bolstering authorities’
suspicion that the five women were not going to Malaysia as
tourists.
He added that the victims also were not allowed
to bring cellular phones by their alleged illegal recruiter, a
certain Edelsa Quiambao Romero.
Romero, according to Col. Gilbert Sosa of the
national police, has pending warrants of arrest for illegal
recruitment and estafa. The victims said they have not met Romero.
De Castro instructed Sosa to find and arrest the
alleged illegal recruiter so that charges can be filed against her.
He commended Sosa, Immigration bureau lawyer
Antonio Rivera and international airport security chief Gen. Jose
Marlowe Pedregoza for saving the five victims. The Vice President is
also the presidential adviser on overseas Filipino workers.
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