Government authorities in Manila are urging Filipino migrant workers in Canada who were victims of an alleged illegal recruiter of foreign workers to contact them.

The illegal recruiter identified by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) as Ma. Ludina Ceniza was operating in Cebu City. She has eluded arrest for half a year.

“Ms. Ceniza successfully deployed some workers to Canada and continued charging them with fees for such deployment. Through her Center, she also recruited household service workers for Singapore. To facilitate deployment, she tied-up with Supersonic Manpower Services Corporation, a recruitment agency that has a valid license,” Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said.

Ceniza, the subject of an arrest warrant in August 2011 but who has eluded arrest due to alleged connections with the Bureau of Immigration and the POEA, faces life imprisonment if proven guilty.

“Finally, the long arm of the law has caught up with a notorious scammer,” Baldoz said.

Baldoz added Ceniza promised jobs to prospective overseas Filipino workers as direct-hire hotel workers in Canada, charging them exorbitant fees.

She would use as her front the Worldwide Academy of Tourism and Hospitality Training and Assessment Center, which she set up.

Her academy had accreditation from the Technical Education and Skilled Development Authority, but the TESDA has since revoked it.

Baldoz said the POEA has received complaints from Ceniza’s victims.

“The POEA regional center in Cebu reported that the number of complainants against Ceniza continues to mount after news of her arrest. Last Monday, 15 more complainants trooped to the POEA to lodge complaints against this alleged illegal recruiter,” Baldoz said.

Mary Candice Aleta from Tagbilaran, Bohol, one of Ceniza’s victims, said Ceniza charged her P105,000, promising her a job as a singer in Singapore with a salary of S$1,400 a month.

The job, however, brought only S$30 for four hours of work per night.

Aleta also said Ceniza faked her papers and made it look like she graduated with a degree in hotel and restaurant management.

In a news release of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Baldoz said: “You have to also help us in the DOLE prosecute the illegal recruiters until they are jailed.”

Baldoz said the DOLE is reactivating its anti-illegal recruitment task forces under the regional coordinating committees headed by DOLE regional directors.

“Our goal is to make our villages, towns, cities, and provinces free of illegal recruiters,” Baldoz said.

Illegal recruiters have continued to victimize hundreds of Filipinos who seek work abroad.

About nine million OFWs representing a tenth of the country’s population, send an estimated $ 18 billion to their loved ones in the Philippines every year.