300 Pinays Valentine victims in South Korea

Valentine's Day is okay, but a few hundred Filipinas are to be married shortly in South Korea without their knowledge.

Today, more than 300 of them are to be engaged to men they have never met. They will reportedly be married at a mass wedding sometime this month or in the coming months.

Officials of the Philippine Embassy in Seoul believe that the women were lured into coming to South Korea after being invited to attend a six-day conference sponsored by a publication of the Unification Church.

The conference was to have started on Feb. 9 and last till tomorrow.

Known as "Moonies," the controversial US-based religious group publishes Today's World, and The Washington Times, a secular newspaper.

Acting Foreign Affairs Secretary Benjamin Domingo said Philippine Embassy officials are looking for the whereabouts of the Filipinas with the help of South Korean authorities.

The women are unaware that they were brought to South Korea to be paired off in marriage with men whom they have not met at all, he added.

Reports received by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said the 300 or more Filipinas were flown to South Korea in batches to avoid being stopped by immigration agents at the port of entry.

Rev. Sun Myung Moon, spiritual leader and founder of the "Moonies," reportedly selects couples to match from among church members, and that they are engaged within a month.

He wed 2,000 couples in mass ceremonies in 1983, the first of many mass weddings that the "Moonies" would perform in many parts of the world.

He started the massive recruitment of couples for marriage in the United States in 1972.

In November 1997, more than 2,500 "Moonie" couples exchanged vows and 28,000 renewed marriage vows at a Washington D.C. football stadium.

Most of those couples had not met each other until the wedding, which was believed to be the biggest religious ceremony in history.