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| Cacdac leads the closure of Dream Pathway's main office |
Secretary Hans Leo J. Cacdac hit the ground running on Thursday, the day he was appointed to the top post of Department of Migrant Workers.
Secretary Cacdac
led an operation to shut down Dream Pathway Education and Immigration Services
(Dream Pathway), an immigration consultancy firm found to have illegally offered
jobs to applicants for permanent residency in Canada.
The DMW, through
its Migrant Workers Protection Bureau (MWPB) and in coordination with local
government and police officers, padlocked Dream Pathway's head office in
Mandaluyong City, as well as its three branches in Cabanatuan City, Nueva
Ecija; Apalit, Pampanga; and Lipa City, Batangas.
Secretary Cacdac
said Dream Pathway was closed down for illegally recruiting Filipino nurses,
caregivers, nursing aides, and welders to Canada.
PINDUTIN DITO
“Dream Pathway
is among the unauthorized entities taking advantage of Canada’s immigration
programs, which are being used as a doorway to Canada for temporary work before
reaching permanent residency. Aside from not securing a proper license from the
DMW, they are charging exorbitant processing fees to hopeful applicants,” he
said in a press release posted in DMW’s Facebook page.
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| Disgruntled job applicants file complaints with authorities |
However, Dream Pathway was not among immigration consultancy companies the DMW has warned the public against, for similarly offering jobs through the student or immigrant visa pathways.
Among these were
Opportunities Abroad and PinoyCare Visa Center, two consultancy firms linked to
Prisca Nina Mabatid, who is being pursued by hundreds of Filipinos who paid at
least P100,000 each but were not helped in securing the Canadian student visa promised
them.
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| TAWAG NA! |
Several illegal recruitment and estafa cases have been filed against Mabatid and several co-accused in various places, including Baguio and Laguna, while the National Bureau of Investigation has recommended the filing of charges against her on behalf of complainants in other parts of the country.
In Hong Kong, the police have called the remaining complainants who have each been charged P132,000 by Mabatid's group so appropriate charges could be filed against them in court.
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| DMW has issued an advisory against PinoyCare Visa Center and Opportunities Abroad |
In the case of Dream Pathway, a surveillance operation conducted by DMW showed it offered various jobs in Canada with a Php 110,000 professional fee under the Atlantic Immigration Pilot (AIP) program.
Filipinos bound
for Canada under the AIP must undergo contract verification and documentary
processing by the DMW, whether through direct hire processing or a licensed
Philippine recruitment agency.
Cacdac ordered the
filing of illegal recruitment charges against Dream Pathway and urged its
victims to contact the DMW for assistance in filing cases against the agency.
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| PINDUTIN DITO |
The firm's
officers and personnel will also be included in the DMW’s "List of Persons
and Establishments with Derogatory Record" which means they will be
permanently denied participation in the government’s overseas
recruitment program.
The simultaneous
padlocking of the company’s four offices was the first to be conducted by the DMW
as part of its anti-illegal recruitment campaign.
The DMW reminds
everyone that all Filipinos bound for employment in Canada must undergo proper
document verification and processing with the DMW for legal documentation as
migrant workers.
On its website,
Dream Pathway is described as an immigration consultancy company based in the
Philippines and “composed of well-experienced immigration specialists who
trained and worked for years with the processing and consultation industry in
the Middle East.”
The services it offered
included assistance with permanent residency application, student visa
application and “permanent residency application with job search support.”
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