MANILA, Philippines — The Bureau of Immigration’s Board of Discipline is looking into the alleged trafficking to Syria of Filipina minors using altered passports, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said.
“Their fact-finding reports will be submitted to the DOJ for review and initiation of formal administrative disciplinary proceedings, if found warranted,” he told reporters on Wednesday.
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On Tuesday, Sen. Risa Hontiveros led the committee hearing into the trafficking of women, where she shared the story of three Filipino Muslim girls, all minors, who were smuggled to Syria.
She said the passports of the women were tampered with, as part of a scheme called “baklas passport,” so details on their passports would be of a different person's.
In the hearing, “pastillas scam” whistleblower Alex Chiong also said that erring BI officers have a Viber group chat that shows the names of women to be trafficked outside the country, which may include underage girls with tampered passports.
Guevarra said the immigration bureau is conducting a continuing investigation and has handed its initial report on Monday, but refused to divulge details.
“We’ll disclose the contents as soon as we find a substantial basis to proceed to a formal administrative investigation,” he said.
DFA called to look into ‘baklas passport’ scheme
Hontiveros also urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to investigate the modus and its officials who may be engaged in producing fake passports.
She noted that Lenlen*, one of the three girls trafficked to Syria, went to the DFA office in Cotabato to get her biometric passport in 2018. “Why then did the DFA give her a fake passport?” added Hontiveros.
The senator said Lenlen was only 14 when she was recruited and she, along with two other girls called Omaima and Aleah, suffered maltreatment from their employers.
Lenlen also suffered verbal sexual harassment from a Philippine Embassy in Syria employee,a certain “Jun Carillo.”
Hontiveros said in a mix of English and Filipino: "I call on the DFA to regularly check the welfare of our women and girls abroad. Even if this Jun Carillo was recalled, we have to make sure that there is no one like him in the agency… The DFA should be proactive in protecting our women.”