Bureau of Immigration (BI) officers at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) stopped from leaving the country on Thursday two Filipinas who admitted they were hired to become surrogate mothers in China.
BI port operations chief Grifton Medina disclosed that the women were about to board a Cebu Pacific flight to Hongkong when they were intercepted by members of the bureau’s travel control and enforcement unit (TCEU) at the immigration departure area of the NAIA 3 terminal.
“They immediately confessed during interview that they were bound for China where their services as surrogate mothers were engaged for a fee of P300,000,” Medina said in his report to BI Commissioner Jaime Morente.
He, however, declined to name the women as such is not allowed by the anti-trafficking law.
A surrogate mother is a woman who agrees to become pregnant and give birth to a child for another person who is the parent of the child.
A surrogacy arrangement is usually sought when pregnancy is medically impossible for a woman or when pregnancy risks are too dangerous for the intended mother or when a single man or a male couple wish to have a child.
Medina said the women were offloaded from their flight even as he stressed that surrogacy exploits women whose wombs are treated as commodities to meet the reproductive needs of rich people who are unable to bear a child.
According to BI-TCEU chief Erwin Ortañez, the women recounted that they were hired as surrogate mothers through a website that invites women who are willing to bear a child for others in exchange for a fee.
Ortañez said both women were former overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who have children but are separated from their husbands.
“They said they were enticed to become surrogate mothers out of poverty and that they needed money to support their families,” he said.
The passengers were later turned over to the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) for further investigation. (Jun Ramirez)