MANILA, Philippines –  A total of 3,390 people who were only carrying tourist visas were prevented by immigration officials from leaving the country in August as part of the government’s campaign against human trafficking.

Bureau of Immigration (BI) Officer-in-Charge Ronaldo Ledesma said on Friday that the suspected “tourist workers” could have planned to use the visas to find work overseas.

He said 1,111 people were stopped at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport's (NAIA) Terminal 1 while 937 others were prevented from leaving the NAIA Terminal 3.

Immigration agents also stopped 677 people at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in Clark, Pampanga, 540 people at NAIA Terminal 2, and 125 at the Mactan International Airport in Cebu last month.

Without providing other figures, Ledesma said the number of suspected “tourist workers” who were prevented from leaving the country in August marked a significant increase from the previous months' figures.
 
Lawyer Arvin Cesar Santos, BI airport operations division acting chief, said in a press statement that most of the off-loaded passengers had tourist visas although their destinations were countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia that are traditional markets for overseas Filipino workers.

Some were also bound for countries in Africa that are not considered tourist destinations at all, he added.

Santos said immigration officials also discovered workers whose job descriptions did not match permits issued by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).

Some had valid work visas but did not have POEA permits, he added
 
Government records show that some Filipinos who went overseas to work illegally ended up in sweatshops and even prostitution dens.

Ledesma said more immigration agents will be deployed in international airports in the coming days to monitor and profile departing travelers.
 
He said the bureau is also looking into the possible involvement of some of its personnel in the "escort service" racket, or those who facilitate the departure of “tourist workers”.
 
Three weeks ago, 20 immigration personnel at the DMIA were placed on preventive suspension pending investigation of their alleged involvement in anomalies at the airport.

The government intensified the campaign against human trafficking after the US State Department recently issued a report identifying the Philippines as among the countries that fall in the Tier 2 category of its human trafficking watch list.