Nacionalista Party President Senator Manny Villar Tuesday sought government’s immediate action to address the problem regarding the increasing number of incidents of Filipinos being used as “drug mules” in other countries.

Villar made the request after the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) released a statement about 183 Filipinos, mostly women, “languishing in various jails in China due to drug trafficking.”

Villar has earlier filed Senate Resolution 1192 seeking an investigation into the increasing number of Filipino drug mules which is heavily damaging the country’s reputation abroad. The senator’s Sagip OFW office has in fact rescued a number of Filipinos victimized by drug cartels.

“We could not possibly rescue every single Filipino who will fall in the hands of drug syndicates worldwide. What we need now are concrete steps to protect them right away. A task force should be formed to focus on this worsening problem,” said Villar.

In a statement on DFA website, Philippine Ambassador to China Sonia Cataumber Brady said Chinese syndicates continue to use Filipinos as “drug mules” to smuggle dangerous and prohibited drugs into China with 183 Filipinos already in jail.

Since 2007, according to the ambassador, 48 Filipinos have been imposed the death penalty and 26 have received a life sentence for carrying narcotic drugs into China. The DFA statement added that among those arrested in 2009 alone, seven have been imposed the death penalty, seven were meted life sentence while another five received a sentence of at least 15 years’ imprisonment.

She said that all those arrested were caught with narcotic drugs in their person or luggage given to them by “friends” they met in transit or another country (in particular Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Macau, Kathmandu, Nepal, Vientiane, Laos and Hanoi, Vietnam), who gave them air tickets and pocket money to travel to Hong Kong, Macau or mainland China with the promise that they would be paid $500, or more upon delivery of the drugs to a contact in their destination.

OFW Nilfa Dumalagan was one of those rescued by Villar’s office. She was victimized in Malaysia by a Nigerian, married to a Filipina, who asked her to get a “package” from Peru. The Nigerian drug cartel is one of the biggest and most notorious, according to reports.