After records showed that another person already traveled using her identity, an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) was intercepted last January 25 by agents from the Bureau of Immigration (BI).
BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco said that members of the immigration protection and border enforcement section (I-Probes) had reported that one alias Olive, 33, attempted to depart for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as an OFW at the Ninoy Aquino International airport (NAIA) Terminal 1.
The case had been forwarded to the Inter-Agency Council Against trafficking who will initiate an investigation into the incident of what the BI branded as a case of OFW with ‘double’ identity.
Primary inspection officers saw that alias Olive have already a recorded departures as an OFW in 2015 and 2019, despite her being a first time traveler.
A careful scrutiny of her records reveal that another person, bearing the exact same identity details, have traveled before.
The OFW told probers that in 2014, she was recruited by an agent in Maguindanao, who changed her birth year to 1990 to comply with the then 23 year old age requirement for household service workers (HSWs).
She admitted to have paid P1,500 for her new birth certificate, but claimed that she was not able to push through with her application and has not heard from her recruiter since. She claimed to be the real owner of the name and details that were used before her.
