The story as related by NBC News correspondent Chris Hansen began last October when Troop Edmonds and his Philippine-born wife, Ravina, at home in Oregon received a panicked overseas call from their 22-year-old Filipina niece, Lannie Ejercito.

“She didn’t know what else to do so she called the only person on the planet that could possibly help her," said Edmonds who had just finished putting Ejercito through nursing school in the Philippines.

Ejercito wanted to work as a nurse in the US but failed a test that is a requirement for obtaining a license to practice nursing in the US.

She then took what she thought was a legitimate job as a hotel singer in Penang, Malaysia, but when she got there her passport was taken from her. And so began her three-week ordeal.

Hansen said Ejercito was forced to sign an eight-year “contract” spelling out how much she owed her traffickers. Experts call this “debt-bondage.”

Edmonds told Hansen that as soon as he received Ejercito’s call for help he enlisted the help of his friend Jerry Howe, who spent 26 years as an FBI special agent working everything from counter-terrorism to organized crime to nearly 100 kidnappings. Together the unlikely pair of 60-somethings flew to Cebu to sniff out the cold trail.

Dateline was invited along.

With information from Ejercito’s mother, the sleuths were able to track down Rachel Sabal, who had recruited Lannie and 15 others in Cebu with the promise of high-paying jobs as singers in Malaysia.

As they were interviewing Sabal with the help of Filipino police her cellphone rang and it was Ejercito at the other end.

In a complete reversal of her earlier plea for help, Ejercito said she was okay and wanted to remain in Malaysia.

Convinced she had been coerced to say she was okay, Edmonds and Howe flew to Malaysia, and with the help of a crude map Sabal had drawn were able to pinpoint where the victims were being held.

After two days of their own investigation they approached Malaysian police who, whether out of a sense of curiosity or  sense of duty, sent police out to the apartment, Hansen reported. However, they found no one there.

Desperate, the sleuths were even willing to consult a local faith healer with a reputation for finding missing persons. Then, Ejercito surfaced in, of all places, a police station.

She had been brought to the station by Kenny Kang, one of her alleged captors who may have brought her in to convince police she was not being held against her will, Hansen said.

Kang’s business partner, a gynecologist named Ng Kok Kwang, also appeared at the station.

They demanded to be paid for their “expenses” before setting Ejercito free but in the end, they let her go with her passport.

“Also free to leave: Dr. Ng and his cohort Kenny Kang. The police let them walk," said the Dateline report.

The rescued Filipinos said they were told by the traffickers that if they did not bring in money as singers, they would have to become prostitutes to pay off their debts.

Dateline NBC also featured a segment of “Anna,” another Filipina who went to Malaysia thinking she would work as a waitress but was later forced into prostitution. Trafficked to Malaysia from her home in the Philippines in early 2007, ‘Anna’ had her virginity sold for $80, Dateline said.

Dateline NBC continued: “Anna thought she was going to be a waitress, but when she arrived at this club in Malaysia she was told that ‘servicing customers’ entailed going home with them. She was forced to sign an official-looking contract which spells out how much she owes her traffickers.

“Experts call this ‘debt-bondage.’ Ana calls it a nightmare. On her first night in Malaysia, her virginity was sold for $80."

Dateline said that two months ago, the Philippine embassy in Malaysia rescued Anna. She is free now, but not well. “I’m afraid I have AIDS,” she told NBC.

In Manila, meanwhile, the United States has vowed to continue helping the Philippines remove itself from a human trafficking watch list as it launched a halfway house for abused Filipinos in Manila.

US Ambassador to Manila Kristie Kenney said her government is joining forces with local authorities and civic groups to help victims of human trafficking in the country.

“In close cooperation with the Philippines, the US will continue its devotion to preventing human trafficking, protecting its victims, and prosecuting those involved with trafficking in persons," Kenney said.

The ambassador led the launching of the Bahay Silungan sa Daungan, a halfway house in North Harbor that will provide shelter to trafficked women and children, especially those from the Visayas and Mindanao.

The Visayan Forum Foundation Inc. will manage the shelter house with the US Agency for International Development funding its operation.

The halfway house is the fourth facility provided by the  Philippine Ports Authority to support government efforts to combat trafficking, after opening shelter centers in Batangas, Sorsogon and Davao.

By Lito Katigbak