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THE Bureau of Immigration (BI) on Thursday has
dispatched a team to Cebu City following reports that criminal
syndicates are operating escort services at the Mactan-Cebu
International Airport.
BI Commissioner Marcelino Libanan
sent the team following a complaint from an association of
recruitment agencies that complained of human smuggling and illegal
recruitment activities at the said airport.
The Association of Agencies
Accredited to Cyprus (AAAC) had written a letter to the Philippine
Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) seeking the labor department to
request the BID to intervene to stop the “escort services.”
AAAC President Raul de Vera Jr.
said in their letter that these escort services in Cebu have already
victimized a huge number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
“The BID program against human
smuggling needs the support of the public,” said Libanan, who
thanked the AAAC for their vigilance against illegal recruitment.
The BID commissioner has also
invited leaders of the overseas placement industry to a consultation
meeting.
Also mentioned in the AAAC letter
was information about undocumented Filipino contract workers using
the Cebu airport as their gateway to the Middle East and Southeast
Asia, although some of them ended up in Cyprus.
The group added that using the
Cebu airport as exit to foreign destinations started after the
immigrations agency succeeded stopping notorious ‘escorts’ at
the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
The government does not allow
Filipinos to leave the country to work overseas without going
through regular process to make sure that they are given the
appropriate protection in their place of work.
Those who leave the country as
undocumented OFWs get through the BI desks as facilitated by
so-called escorts who have the blessings of rogue immigration and
airport officials.
--Anthony Vargas
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