Airline personnel’s ‘possible’ involvement in facilitating the departure of victims of human trafficking and illegal recruitment was brought to the fore by Bureau of Immigration (BI) Commissioner Norman Tansingco, as he urged Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) officials to investigate it.
Tansingco’s appeal came after BI officers at the NAIA terminal 3 intercepted a woman who reportedly attempted to leave with a fake immigration departure stamp on her passport.
During questioning, the woman said that she was assisted by an airline employee and the latter’s former officemate in queuing at the immigration departure counter.
The woman, according to Tansingco, was told to fall in line by her ‘handler’ after being given her passport and boarding pass which had the fake BI departure stamps on them.
The incident reportedly happened last April 5 when the passenger was supposed to fly to Kuala Lumpur en route to her final destination in the United Arab Emirates where she was recruited to work as a domestic household worker.
The BI officer who was about to process her, on examination, noticed that her passport already had an immigration departure stamp that appeared to be spurious. The BI’s document forensic laboratory later confirmed that said stamp is indeed, counterfeit.
The BI chief said the incident should warn airline personnel that they should not connive with human traffickers and illegal recruiters.
“They should stop preying on our poor countrymen who want to work abroad due to poverty and their desire to uplift the lives of their families. We thus urge airport authorities to dig deeper into these shenanigans and file the cases against those involved,” he said.
Meanwhile, Tansingco refused to name the airline associated with the passenger’s escorts, saying the case was already referred to and is being investigated by the NAIA’s anti-trafficking task force and its airport police department.
