Manila, Philippines – An employee of Reiven Air Travel Tours and consultancy based in Ermita, Manila, has been apprehended by the authorities after being allegedly involved in illegally recruiting Filipinos who want to work abroad.
The travel agency is not authorized to recruit applicants seeking employment abroad.
For several months, personnel from the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) Anti-Illegal Recruitment and Trafficking in Persons Program monitored this travel agency.
The DMW found out that applicants from a licensed recruitment firm, Reliable Recruitment Corporation, also based in Ermita, Manila, were being forwarded to this travel agency.
According to the DMW, a recruitment agency cannot forward a Job Order to another travel agency.
One of the victims is an OFW John, who has been going back and forth to other countries since 2012 to earn a living, and now he is trying to apply for a job in Poland.
But he has already paid a placement fee ranging to 200,000 Pesos to the recruitment agency for the process of the documents, which is against the mandate of the DMW.
Through the entrapment operations resulting from the surveillance, it was proven that the said recruitment agency was charging exorbitant placement fees.
That is why the DMW and the authorities pad-locked the two companies by virtue of the closure order.
The salary promised to Filipino applicants are ranging to 90,000 pesos, with a job offered in the agricultural sector in Poland.
But there is no job order yet, meaning there are no specific job opportunities waiting for the applicants.
Those behind the illegal recruitment of Filipinos seeking work abroad are now facing the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.
The department is also studying whether to charge those involved in the illegal recruitment with estafa, if it is proven that they received payments from applicants. —Alvin Pelobello, Eurotv News