29-3-2024 (MANILA) The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has intervened to rescue a woman believed to be ensnared in a mail-order bride syndicate, preying on Filipinas lured to China under false pretexts.
According to a statement released by the agency on Friday, BI officers intercepted the woman at Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 on March 15, just moments before she was set to board a China Southern Airlines flight bound for Guangzhou, China.
The Immigration Protection and Border Enforcement Section of BI, in its report, highlighted discrepancies in the woman’s documentation. While she presented a marriage certificate supposedly from a civil wedding in Pasig City in January, scrutiny revealed inconsistencies, notably in the gender of the officiant depicted in the wedding photograph compared to the certificate.
Upon interrogation, the woman admitted that the marriage was arranged through a recruiter, who had promised her a substantial sum of half a million pesos upon her arrival in China. She confessed to never having met her purported spouse before his visit to the Philippines and to having no prior long-distance relationship with him.
Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco underscored the gravity of such scams, which often exploit Filipinas, forcing them into domestic servitude and subjecting them to exploitative labor practices at the hands of their purported spouses.
Tansingco warned that these schemes have already caused harm to many Filipinas enticed by the allure of lucrative financial offers, only to find themselves deceived and disillusioned upon their arrival abroad.
