All Filipinos going to Bangkok, Thailand as tourists can expect a more rigorous screening process as the Philippine government recently ordered the Bureau of Immigration to conduct a thorough screening of all Bangkok-bound Filipino tourists. This move is in response to the report that the said city is being used as a transit point for “tourist workers."

The term “tourist workers” refer to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) without proper working documents. These OFWs usually go out of the country as tourists but with the real intention of finding employment abroad. Apparently this method is now being used by human traffickers and illegal recruiters so they can still send Filipino workers to countries where there is an existing deployment ban.

The spokesperson of Immigration, Maria Antonette Bucasas-Mangrobang, said that that their agency received an intelligence report that illegal OFWs are using Bangkok as a jump-off point before going to the Middle East, especially to Jordan and Lebanon.

The Immigration Commissioner, Ricardo David Jr., said that he instructed the acting chief of Immigration Airport Operations Division, Lina Andaman-Pelia to carefully inspect all Filipino tourists that are suspected to find employment in countries where there is an existing deployment ban. The Philippines currently has a deployment ban to the following countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Nigeria.