The agency that scammed hundreds of thousands of pesos out of Germany-bound trainees in 2024 was based in Manila. Here’s how to check an agency before you become the next case.
The Department of Migrant Workers (DMW, which absorbed POEA in 2022) licenses recruitment agencies. Search any agency’s exact name and licence number on DMW’s agency lookup — watch for near-identical scam names — and separately check their Approved Job Orders for the specific employer and position. A licence alone isn’t enough.
This is the one country in this guide with a named, dated enforcement case directly on point — see the full avoiding-scams guide for the GIS Manila case specifics.
Since the 2018 K-12 curriculum reform, when your diploma was started matters: Senior High School (Grade 12, started 2018 or later) on the academic track maps to HAVO-equivalent; earlier High School diplomas and associate degrees started before 2018 are read differently from those started after. Check which bucket your documentation falls into before assuming a mapping.