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Sunday, June 27, 2004
Teachers lose estafa cases v. ‘illegal recruiters’
TWO recruitment agencies in Cebu City were cleared of two estafa cases some public and private school teachers had filed.
However, the owners of Universal Agency Inc. and their marketing manager will be facing 21 counts of illegal recruitment, as recommended by the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office.
The cases stemmed from the complaint of at least 17 teachers who said they were convinced to give $1,000 to $3,750 jobs abroad.
They filed the complaint against Ramasia Manpower Services and Universal Agency Inc., which is based in Northridge, California.
Two years passed since they were recruited in June and August 2000 but no job offer came.
Ramasia and Universal, both licensed by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, cited the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US as reason for the teachers’ non-deployment.
In a three-page joint comment, Assistant City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon agreed with investigating prosecutor Mary Ann Castro to recommend the dismissal of the estafa cases against spouses Luciano and Ester Rama, who both own Ramasia, and Universal owners Randy and Susan Henry couple and Universal marketing manager Denny Go.
They, however, recommended the filing of 21 counts for illegal recruitment against the Henry spouses and Go.
Ramasia was the local recruitment agency previously used by the Universal, which looks for job orders abroad.
From the complaints, the teachers, who all have masteral degrees, narrated that they responded to an advertising looking for applicants for teaching jobs in the United States.
They paid the processing and documentation fees ranging from $1,000 to $3,750. However, they asked for the reimbursement of the amounts after growing tired of waiting for two years.
Complaints for estafa were then filed before the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office.
However, both Sellon and Castro ruled that none of the respondents could be held for estafa since the element of deceit is absent in the cases.
“Estafa will not lie in the present case for the reason that Ramasia and Universal are both authorized by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration. Therefore, the element of deceit, which is essential in the crime of estafa, is totally absent,” their joint comments read.
“It has not also been disputed that the said recruitment agencies have already deployed many teachers for employment abroad.”
Sellon and Castro also ruled that the Henry couple and Go can be held for violating Republic Act 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipino Workers Act of 1995, which penalizes the failure to reimburse expenses incurred by applicants for documentation and processing purposes.
The investigators also ruled that the Rama couple and Ramasia could not be held liable for any violation since the receipts and other proofs presented by the complaining teachers showed that they dealt directly with Universal.GAN
(June 27, 2004 issue)
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