Immigration officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) have arrested a Chinese national allegedly attempting to bring two Filipino women to China for arranged marriages to Chinese men.
Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr. said the male suspect and the two women were intercepted at Naia Terminal 2 before they could board a Philippine Airlines flight to Beijing.
David said the women claimed they were going to Beijing as tourists but they could not answer immigration officers’ questions about their itinerary in China.
Initially, the women claimed to be employed as supervisor and manager of a Chinese-Filipino mining firm but the identification cards they presented turned out to be fake, David said.
“They changed their story and admitted they were traveling to China with their male Chinese companion who was to help them convince immigration authorities at the Beijing airport that they were really tourists,” he said.
“They said that in China they would be matched for marriage to Chinese men whom they had not met,” David added.
He said that both the Persons in Trafficking Act of 2003 and a 2012 law that expanded it declare as unlawful the act of matching Filipinos for marriage to foreign nationals.
“These laws do not only prohibit sending women abroad for prostitution or forced labor, they also define as trafficking the act of introducing or matching for profit any Filipino woman to a foreigner for marriage,” the immigration chief said.
He added that the law mandates the Bureau of Immigration to adopt measures for apprehending suspected traffickers and ensure that Filipino fiancés and spouses of aliens comply with guidance and counseling requirements.