The new academic year is approaching again and many teachers are flocking to the country to find their chance of getting employed in their profession. However, I heard about a certain kind of scam on October last year about a certain recruiter of teachers from the Philippines. This might expose the Filipinos to another bad image again, but it might even be worst if more fellow, poor, Filipino teachers will be losing their hard-borrowed or loaned (not earned) money to such unscrupulous people. It took me months to think about this, and balance the situation, before I finally decided to inform Ajarn. What this person allegedly did was to contact more that 20 teachers and required each one to pay 50,000 pesos (about 41,000 baht) for a guaranteed teaching job here in Thailand. I'm not sure if this included the air fare or not, although I strongly suspect that it did not. Apartment rent along with food allowance were not also included. So these poor teachers had to bring additional money that will sustain them until they will be lucky enough to find their employers. If when, only God knows.

On arriving here, this recruiter started bringing this platoon of teachers to the different advertised teaching agencies and schools. Of course each one had to undergo interviews along with other normal procedures that should be done when a teacher applies for a teaching position, which was contrary to what the recruiter promised. It was supposed to be a GUARANTEED WAITING TEACHING JOB. The recruiter also applied and had to undergo interview himself/herself (not sure if it’s a male or a female). The group was just lucky enough to find a newly opened school needing more than twenty teachers, and so they were all hired. Well at least, just for that semester. I just hope that these already got their job contract for the next academic year. Otherwise, you know what I mean.

I tried informing one of the TV stations in the Philippines about this but I still got no reply from them, nor any acknowledgement that they received the information. To my Kababayans, please find ways to inform everyone back home about this scam, and if possible help in the arrest of this/these person/persons, to stop it from becoming an organized scam.

Thai Ilfil