The Philippines implemented a ban on kidney transplants for foreigners on May 2008. But it didn’t take long for foreigners looking for local transplants to find a loophole in the law.
In a press conference, DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral said sham marriages between locals and foreigners are now being done to disguise organ sales.
A July 21 Inquirer article reported Cabral saying how two months ago, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute rejected the case of a Saudi national who wanted to schedule a kidney transplant with his Filipino wife.
The marriage was clearly a ploy to go around the law on the ban on foreign kidney transplants, Cabral said in the Inquirer article.
She added that since the ban on foreign transplants was implemented, government officials have noticed an increase in sham marriages. More details here.
