Pressures associated with the government's labor export policy can also manifest in of illegal recruitment. There is for instance the case where over 27 nurses recruited to work in the US signed a contract with the Sentosa recruitment agency in the Philippines but were eventually assigned to different health care facilities and were made cases to do work different from what their contracts stipulated. They filed cases in the Philippine and the agency was initially suspended. These were quickly dismissed however, apparently upon the intervention of a high-ranking government official, and the ban was lifted even before the end of the approved duration. In a dialogue initiated by Migrante and families of the nurses, then POEAAdministrator Rosalinda Baldoz admitted that there could be cause for illegal recruitment but government is more concerned about the case affecting the "thousands ofjobs in the pipeline." (See also Box: Syndicate trafficking to Singapore) Box 2: Syndicate tralficking to Singapore The Excellent TravelAgency has since 1997 been illegally recruiting mainly women to work as domestic helpers in Singapore. Its agents operate across the country and allegedly get a commission of P5,000 for every Filipina they are able to recruit, while the escorts who make sure that they get on the flight to Singapore are paid P7,000-8,000 per person. Before leaving the women are made to sign a declaration that they bought their tickets from the travel agency and are leaving of their own free will. In Singapore the women are taken in by the Fil Air Travel Agency at their headquarters where anywhere from 12-20 women stay in a small room. While waiting for employrnent, some of the women take on part-time jobs at the agency although others go on to Malaysia to find work as "guest relations officers". Excellent Travel Agency earns from making the women buy round-trip tickets for P25,000 but the return leg of which they later refund from the airline, aside from sometimes issuing 'dummy tickets'. There are days when they send off three batches of 40 women each. Once made FilAir TravelAgency in Singapore finds work for the women, they are to sign contracts where the first six months of salaries are automatically deducted and go straight to the agency which then splits this with Excellent Travel Agency in the Philippines. The women then really only start receiving their salaries on the seventh month. Excellent Travel Agency allegedly has connections with officials in the Department of Foreig4 Affairs (DFA), Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC), Bureau of Immigration (BI) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). 29