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BUREAU of Immigration (BI) agents intercepted eight Malaysia-bound workers posing as tourists at the Zamboanga International Seaport (ZIS).<\/p>\n
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The passengers, whose identities are being withheld for their protection, were attempting to board MV Antonia bound for Sandakan, Sabah, on November 13.<\/p>\n
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BI Commissioner Norman Tansingco disclosed that the victims initially presented themselves as individual tourists with varying reasons for travel, including purchasing welding machinery abroad, and visiting family and friends.<\/p>\n
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However, upon secondary inspection, the passengers confessed to planning employment in a shipyard and an engineering firm in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.<\/p>\n
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Tansingco said the case exposes the continued threat of human trafficking through seaports.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe strengthened anti-trafficking measures, implemented not only in airports but also in seaports, show the government\u2019s commitment to combat this illicit activity comprehensively,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Tansingco urged aspiring overseas Filipino workers (OFW) to consult with authorized agencies to verify the legitimacy of job offers.<\/p>\n
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\u201cAspiring workers abroad must obtain the necessary clearances and approvals from relevant government agencies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis includes verification of your employment contract, validation of your job offer, and securing overseas employment certificates from the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW),\u201d added Tansingco.<\/p>\n
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All eight passengers were turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for further investigation.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BUREAU of Immigration (BI) agents intercepted eight Malaysia-bound workers posing as tourists at the Zamboanga International Seaport (ZIS). The passengers, whose identities are being withheld<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}