Immigration officers at the airport have been ordered to strictly check Filipino tourists bound for South Korea following the apprehensions of several undocumented overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) bound for South Korea.
Commissioner Ricardo David said that the tension in the Korean Peninsula has not deterred human trafficking syndicates from sending their victims there as shown by the recent successive apprehensions of "tourist workers."
David has directed immigration officers in the different airports to be doubly strict in allowing the departure of Filipino tourists who are also bound for Hongkong and Macau as these are usually used as transit points by Korea-bound "tourist workers."
"Tourist workers" refer to undocumented OFWs who leave in the guise of being tourists.
Immigration personnel were ordered to closely scrutinize the travel papers of departing Filipino tourists to make sure that they are traveling for pleasure and not to work abroad without proper documentation.
He noted that "tourist workers" bound for Korea were intercepted not only at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) but also at the airports in Clark and Cebu.
The apprehended passengers are mostly women who admitted they were issued hired to work as entertainers in Korea, David added.
"It appears that the possible outbreak of war in Korea has not dampened the desire of our countrymen to make a living abroad," the Bureau of Immigration chief observed.
Koreans are not taking the threat of war seriously as evidenced by the continuing influx of Korean tourists to the Philippines.
It was learned that last April, two more women bound for Hongkong were offloaded by immigration officers at the NAIA after they admitted that their final destination is Korea.
The women initially claimed they were vacationing in Hongkong and presented questionable documents including ID's purportedly issued by the companies that employed them.
Source: http://www.tribune.net.ph/index.php/metro-section/item/13100-bi-officers-ordered-to-strictly-check-%E2%80%98tourist%E2%80%99-pinoys-going-to-sokor
