BI agents eyed in illegal OFW deployment to Lebanon

Vice President Noli de Castro said immigration agents at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) may allegedly be working with syndicates sending Filipinos to Lebanon despite a total ban on the deployment of workers to that country.

De Castro, who also heads the Presidential Anti-Illegal Recruitment Task Force, raised this concern after seven Filipinas bound for Lebanon were intercepted at the NAIA Terminal 2 Friday morning.

In his weekly public service radio program, De Castro said he is set to write Bureau of Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan that all seven would-be overseas workers were told “that they should go through one immigration lane, that of (immigration officer) Lydia Mercado.”

Ambassador Gilbert Asuque Jr. told De Castro the deployment ban is still in effect because “there is no law protecting foreign workers” in Lebanon, even though tensions have subsided considerably. – Rainier Allan Ronda