Wednesday, December 24, 2008 909 travelers barred from leaving RP
AT LEAST 909 travelers were prohibited from leaving the country in the first 11 months of the year.
Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan said the travelers were offloaded at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) and other ports from January to November 30 this year, as part of the Bureau of Immigration's (BI) campaign to stop human trafficking and exit of undocumented overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
A total of 759 Filipinos, mostly OFWs who are not properly documented, accounted for the bulk of the offloaded passengers; while the rest were foreigners who had defective travel papers and some were in BI's hold order list and watch-list.
Most of the OFWs, according to Libanan, were bound either for Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and other Middle East countries.
He said the immigration bureau vowed to continue enforcing the ban on the departure of undocumented OFWs to remove them from harm's way.
BI records showed that there are many instances of OFWs ending up in the flesh trade or were abused or maltreated by their foreign employers.
Recently, the BI adopted a tougher policy against illegal recruiters and their victims by placing them in the bureau's watch-list if they are intercepted or caught attempting to leave the country.
On the other hand, Libanan has directed that all passengers offloaded on suspicion of involvement in illegal recruitment and human trafficking be photographed and the circumstances and reasons for their offloading be recorded so that they could be offloaded if they attempt to leave the country again. (FP/Sunnex)
