The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has issued a warning about the increasing cases of Filipinos who are victims of human trafficking leaving the country using backdoor routes to work in "POGO-like" companies abroad.
This comes after the Philippine government repatriated three Filipino trafficking victims from Phnom Penh, Cambodia on March 16. According to BI Commissioner Joel Anthony Viado, they were tricked into working as love scammers.
According to the BI, the victims sought help from the Philippine embassy after they experienced abuseand torturefrom their employers for more than two months.
Upon their arrival in the Philippines, they were assisted by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)which immediately conducted an investigation against their recruiters.
Initial investigation revealed that they did not have official exit records. The victims said they left the Philippines via an illegal route, taking a small boat from Jolo, Sulu to Sabah, Malaysia.
Upon arrival in Sabah, the BI said their passports had a fake Philippine departure stamp. From Sabah, they traveled to Kuala Lumpur, boarded a plane to Bangkok, Thailand, until they reached their destination in Cambodia.
The BI document laboratory confirmed that the BI departure stamps on their passports were fake.
According to the BI, they were recruited through Facebook by a fellow Filipino who promised a Customer Service Representative job in Cambodia with a salary of USD 1,000 per month. But when they arrived in Cambodia, they were trained to be love scammers and were only paid USD 300.
Due to the low salary, they tried to find other jobs but their Chinese employer allegedly beat them, took their cellphones, and left them in an unfamiliar place.
The BI will continue to tighten its border security measures, but according to Viado, there is a need for closer coordination with local authorities to prevent illegal departures from the country.
“We need to work together because we must further strengthen our measures to prevent illegal departures from the country. Traffickers use illegal routes to evade immigration, so it is important to tighten surveillance and enforcement in vulnerable areas,” Viado said.
“This industry results in the abuse of our fellow Filipinos,” he added.
This is not the first time that the BI has issued a warning against fake job offers from recruiters abroad. In December 2023, the BI also issued a warning after they deported 27 Filipinos who were turned into love scammers in Cambodia, whose target was older men from the United Kingdom.
Like the previous case, this group also went through the backdoor route originating from Sabah, Malaysia, and their Chinese employers sold them to other companies before they were rescued by Cambodian police.
