Filipino professionals, teachers, guidance counselors, school administrators and librarians are considered as among the prize catch. Because they come from the Philippines, known to be the third English-speaking country in the world, Filipino teaching professionals have been recruited to work in Vietnam, China, Thailand and other countries now wanting to beef up the English communication skills and other competencies of their students.

Their reputation as diligent and caring nurturers of young minds has also aided the recruitment of Filipino teachers for overseas work. Many of these teachers are into science, mathematics, and special education, all prime areas in teaching.

In the past two decades, teachers have been among the most recruitable of Filipinos who want to practice their profession and relocate in the United States, long in need of teachers to fill up its schools.

Teaching adventures in this “land of milk and honey” have not been very rewarding for all overseas Filipino teachers, though.

To date, nine Filipino teachers recruited to work in the United States are now facing the struggle of their lives as they allege illegal recruitment, grave threats and other forms of exploitation against Isidro Rodriguez, a fellow Filipino who recruits teachers for work in this country.

Rodriguez, an alleged illegal recruiter, was arrested on April 5 by the Stafford County Police Force in front of the house of one of his alleged victims, Aurora Calo.

Calo, a U.S. citizen, was allegedly lured to invest $200,000 by Rodriguez, who ran away with her money.

Able to flit in and out of the United States, Rodriguez was arrested upon arriving in the United States just a few days before. Soon after he arrived, he allegedly called some teachers whom he recruited in the country, most likely to settle. He later called Calo whom he allegedly threatened with bodily harm and of blowing her properties in the Philippines. He was picked up later by the U.S. authorities.

Other Filipinos in the U.S. now “hope that additional criminal charges in the Philippines will be filed against this individual as he had victimized other poor Filipinos and fooled entire families” yearning to migrate into the United States, said Atty. Arnedo Valera, a Virginia and Washington, D.C.-based lawyer assisting the teachers.

Affidavits of complaints have been prepared against Rodriguez be teachers Zenaida Araojo, Ynazaria Balingit, Ronnie Aurora Calo, Renato Nicolas, Nannette Mendoza, Mylene Garcia, Marites Duldulao, Evelyn Vallangca and Angeles Rosales.

Rodriguez’s certification issued by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has unfolded what could be a big scam in teacher recruitment in Virginia, North Carolina and other states in America.

A document, signed on Jan. 3 by Melchor B. Dizon, Director IV of POEA’s licensing and regulation office, states in part: “Greenlife Care International, LLC, with an address in Makati City, allegedly represented by Isidro L. and Pura Rodriguez, his sister, is not licensed by this Administration to recruit workers for overseas employment.”

Dizon issued the certification on account of a complaint filed by Nannette M. Mendoza with the POEA on Jan. 14, 2007 against the Rodriguezes for illegal recruitment and estafa or violation of RA 8042.

Mendoza’s complaint links similar charges filed by at least eight other Filipino teachers in Virginia and North Carolina. The Philippine Embassy says that there are even more teachers who have complained of being victimized by illegal recruitment.

The teachers’ allegations are now the subject of investigation by the U.S. Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services, the U.S. Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and county police, as well as by the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C., POEA, and the National Bureau of Investigation.

Many of the complaining teachers sought legal advice from Valera, executive director of the Migrant Heritage Commission, based in Virginia.

More Filipino teachers, based in the Philippines and the United States, are coming out with their own gripes against Green Life Care International (GLCI), after the news came out on March 3, when ABS-CBN interviewed some of the Virginia-based teachers.

Charges of human trafficking and illegal recruitment have been filed against Isidro Rodriguez of World Goal Corporation, reportedly now based in U.N. Avenue, Manila, and its affiliate, GLCI, which claims to be based in Fresh Meadows, New York. The U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division is also probing into the cases for possible human trafficking charges.

Rodriguez has denied all charges, claiming they are fabricated, including the news accounts. He claims to be the leading supplier of Filipino nurses in Virginia and North Carolina and had deployed 500 Filipino teachers in these states.

The teachers said that the teaching jobs promised them were a farce and that refunds of expenses that could total hundreds of thousands of dollars they and other Filipino residents had incurred were paid mostly in checks that eventually bounced. Most times, their affidavits reveal, the Rodriguezes were nowhere to be found, neither in Manila nor in the United States.

Some of them alleged that they and their families in the Philippines also received calls from Rodriguez, threatening them with deportation by the U.S. immigration and police authorities.

Filipino teachers are filling in an acute shortage in the United States, which has long been in need of these professionals. They are lured by salaries of up to $47,000 a year in American public schools.

Despite mounting stories of illegal recruitment and human trafficking, the financial enticements for these teachers, who in the past were willing to work as domestics and caregivers in other countries, continue to seduce them in crisis-wracked Philippines.