Macau Dreams, Dashed by Scammers

Published on February 4, 2010

“They promised that we would live in a comfortable flat. But when we got there, it was the other way around,” Marasigan said. Dimaculangan owns three flats, where Filipino victims live. Some 20 Filipinos are living in each flat, and most of them are jobless. But nonetheless they were able to pay for the first month of their stay. Should they decide to leave Macau and return to the Philippines, Dimaculangan would have already benefited from their stay.

Since the four of them and other Filipinos who were victims of illegal recruitment were already there, they decided to still look for work. But they were surprised when they were informed that they had to pay Chinese employers for their application. “It seems that the Filipinos have also become a business to them because they know that many are being victimized by empty promises of getting a job there,” Marasigan said. “We were even interviewed but I doubt if it were real at all.”

Worse, Vendiola was told that he was already too old for the jobs in Macau.

Finding Help, Justice

They were about to exceed the paid first month of their stay at the flat when its owner, Dimaculangan, started to nag them about paying for the following month. But since she noticed that Enriquez and his company found help through Filiipino organizations in Macau, Marasigan said Dimaculangan started to be friendly toward them again.

Through free bus rides and free refreshments and sandwiches in various hotels in Macau, the four of them managed to survive for days and get to key offices where they would ask help. On Jan. 7, they went to the Philippine consulate to ask for assistance but did not get any.

Later on, they managed to contact a local chapter of Migrante International in Macau. And since all of them are from Quezon province, they also found a way to contact another local chapter of Quezonians in Macau, who were blue-card holders themselves. They were given food and assistance. Eventually, Vendiola was given fare tickets by the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) back to the Philippines. He returned home on Jan. 10. He was soon followed by his fellow victims from Macau, who received help from the Filipino communities there.

Aside from the four of them, some Filipinos also managed to get assistance elsewhere and were also sent back home. Six of them managed to contact a provincial board member from Quezon, who referred them to Angelo Devanadera, son of Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera. They were immediately brought to the office of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and a press conference at the Department of Justice (DoJ) soon followed.

In the said press conference, the six victims were promised to bring justice to their case. “We hope that the DoJ’s action on the matter is not all for media hype. We will keep an eye for their vow to punish the culprits and we will wait for their move to throw out the trashes that are withing their fence,” Migrante International chairperson Garry Martinez said in a statement.

The OFW group said that there is a need for investigation among the ranks of the DoJ since the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID) acts as the primary arm of the DoJ when it comes to monitoring the entry and exit of Filipino citizens.

Martinez also highlighted the need to investigate the Philippine consulate in Macau for the lack of action toward the rampant cases of Filipinos of illegal recruitment there. He added that there is also a need to investigate the issue of how affidavits of support were allegedly sold by the Philippine consulate in Macau to blue-card holders without official receipts.

Martinez said there had already been cases of illegal recruitment in 2008 in Macau. These, he said, had been brought to the attention of concerned government offices.

Most of the victims of this scam said that since it was a terrible and traumatic experience, they are afraid of going through it again. “We heard of similar cases even involving OFWs who went abroad through legal means,” Marasigan said. But among the four victims that Bulatlat had talked to, only Enriquez was willing to work abroad in the future but this time through legal means, saying that it was a forced choice he had to make because there are no local job opportunities that could support his family.

“We want justice to be served,” Enriquez said, adding that if due attention is given to their plight, no Filipinos would be lured again to empty promises. (Bulatlat.com)

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