The Philippine government failed to sufficiently protect human trafficking victims in illegal scam hubs, according to the 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report released by the US Department of State.
The report said the Philippines retained its Tier 1 ranking after showing ‘serious efforts’ to combat trafficking, including prosecuting traffickers, sentencing most to significant prison terms, enacting laws to protect fishers, and taking steps to disrupt trafficking in online scam hubs.
It also cited the government’s ban on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), which were often used as fronts for trafficking foreign workers.
Despite these efforts, the State Department said the Philippines fell short in screening for trafficking victims during POGO raids.
‘The government did not report identifying any foreign victims exploited in these operations,’ the report said, noting that officials may have unjustly penalized individuals who were actually trafficked.
Unlike in 2023, when authorities identified 362 foreign trafficking victims in cooperation with an international organization, no such victims were reported in 2024.
Authorities deported thousands of Chinese and other Asian workers, but the failure to identify victims undermined those efforts, the Department of State said.
‘Officials deported the overwhelming majority of foreign nationals it arrested from these operations without identifying them as trafficking victims-totaling at least 3,000 foreign nationals during the reporting period,’ the department said.
Decline in victim identification
The mass crackdown on POGOs followed President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s order to ban offshore gaming.
Authorities, however, lacked reliable statistics on the total number of trafficking victims, including those linked to POGOs.
This, the report said, “contributed to the deportation of some unidentified victims to countries where they may have faced retribution or hardship, and in some cases, prosecution in their country of origin solely for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.”
Some officials also failed to apply ‘trauma-informed practices’ in victim screening, it said.