3 Japanese tourists, 4 Pinoys arrested in tutorial school raid

MANILA, Philippines - Police arrested three Japanese tourists and four Filipinos and rescued 104 “teachers” during a raid Monday night on a tutorial school allegedly being used as a “prostitution front” in Lingayen, Pangasinan.

Chief Superintendent Benjamin Magalong, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) director, said this is the first time that they encountered this kind of racket, and he vowed to conduct a deeper probe to unmask its “protectors.”

“This is an eye-opener. This will trigger a series of investigations for us to determine whether other schools in the country are also involved in this kind of racket,” Magalong said.

Arrested were Japanese tourists Takayuki Umeda, 42; Jyunko Natori, 42; and Masahiro Kishigami, 26; and Filipinos Erlinda Tandoc, 40; Leonora Ceralde, 38; Josephine Gille, 34; and Rafael Tandoc, 25.

Seized from the group were P720,000 in cash, assorted laptops, a closed-circuit television monitor and digital video recorder, passbooks, bankbooks, cameras, documents, 44 sets of CPUs, monitors, keyboards, a webcam, headsets, uninterrupted power supply unit, two servers, six voltage regulators, a .22-caliber handgun, and two boxes of teacher uniforms.

Senior Superintendent Roberto Fajardo, CIDG-National Capital Region chief, said the management of the Parrots Kun Eikaiwa tutorial school located on Avenida Street in Barangay Rizal West, Lingayen town denied being a prostitution front and insisted they are running an educational center even recognized by the municipal government.

“I would like to emphasize that nobody intervened in our operation which went smoothly in the presence of village officials,” Magalong said.

According to Fajardo, a former employee of Parrots Kun Eikaiwa revealed to them the tutorial school’s modus operandi, prompting them to validate the information before applying for a search warrant from the Pangasinan regional trial court.

Fajardo said those rescued hail from Lingayen and neighboring towns and were hired to teach English to elder male Japanese nationals they contacted online.

“The ‘teachers,’ some of them college undergraduates, are paid P6,000. They are given bonuses if they convince their clients to visit their school,” he said.

He said there are times when the female “teachers” were asked to undress before their clients. “They hesitated at first but gave in later after the prodding of the management that they would lose nothing because their Japanese clients could not touch them,” he added.

Fajardo said an informant revealed that a van would fetch the Japanese clients at the airport and bring them to the school where they “had sex” with the “teachers” for a fee. Those rescued, however, denied this.

The tutorial school has been operating since 2010.

Police are readying charges of violation of the Expanded Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2012 against the suspects before the Department of Justice. – With Eva Visperas