By Jun Ramirez

Bureau of Immigration (BI) officers have arrested a man at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) who was trying to escort out of the country three victims recruited to work in the European island nation of Malta.

Immigration port operations chief Grifton Medina said the suspect and his victims were about to board an Eva Air flight to Malta at NAIA Terminal 1 last Tuesday when they were stopped by members of the bureau’s travel control and enforcement unit (TCEU).

Medina did not divulge the names of the victims because the law prohibits the public disclosure of names of victims in human trafficking cases.

NAIA 1 TCEU head Glenn Ford Comia said the victims initially claimed they were on a business trip and that they were employees of a recruitment agency.

But when interviewed by TCEU members Pamela Eugenio and Pamela Gonzales, the three admitted that they were not employees of the recruitment agency, and pointed to their other companion as the one who recruited them to work as housekeepers in Malta.

They said that each of them paid the recruiter P310,000 as placement fees and for travel costs.

“I pity them because they said that they had to borrow from their relatives to pay for their recruitment fees,” said Comia.

All four were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for investigation and filing of appropriate charges against the recruiter.