MANILA, 2 January 2005 — Portions of the Migrant Workers Act or Republic Act 8042, pertaining to illegal recruitment, have been declared unconstitutional by a local court.
In a ruling issued Dec. 14 and made public only before the yearend, Presiding Judge Juan Nabong Jr. of the Manila Regional Trial Court ordered the deletion of several sections of the law on grounds that they violated the rights of licensed recruitment agencies.
The ruling came as partial victory for the Philippine Association of Service Exporters Inc. (PASEI), which asked the court in July 1995 to nullify the entire law, arguing that it covered more than one subject and as such violated some fundamental principles enshrined in the constitution.
Declared invalid by the court were Sections 6, 7, 9 and parts of Section 10 of the Migrant Workers Act, which Congress hurriedly enacted in June 1995 in the wake of public outrage over the execution in Singapore of Filipino domestic Flor Contemplacion.
Sections 6 and 7, which defined illegal recruitment, were declared by the court as being “grossly violative of the process of equal protection rights of owners, operators, officers, directors, and employees of licensed recruitment agencies.”
Nabong agreed with PASEI that these two sections “did not distinguish between licensees and non-licensees with regard to penalties for illegal recruitment, thus the provisions would give non-licensees an undue privilege and advantage over licensees.”
“In effect, to non-licensees it would be better to engage in fly-by-night illegal recruitment activities than resort to licensing with the POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration),” Nabong said.
Section 9 and a portion of Section 10, which provides for the venue of criminal actions in illegal recruitment cases, “violated procedural due process and was in conflict with the provisions of the Rules of Criminal Procedure on this matter.”
Nabong ruled that cases against illegal recruiters should not be filed before the victims’ local courts (usually in the provinces) but rather in national courts or where the alleged case occurred.
“Now the court has decided and this augurs well for the overseas recruitment sector which has been reeling from the effects of those provisions,” PASEI President Vic Fernandez said.
He said that the decision was a victory not just for PASEI but for the entire overseas recruitment industry.
The Migrante Sectoral Party criticized the decision as “the latest government attack on overseas Filipino workers and their families” and “among the worst Christmas gifts government has given to OFWs.”
“It reeks of government bias against OFW victims of illegal recruitment activities by both licensed and non-licensed agencies,” Migrante Party Chair Connie Bragas-Regalado said.
She said the existing policies on overseas employment “are being willfully circumvented” by both licensees and non-licensees. “Many licensed recruitment agencies commit illegal recruitment activities like overcharging OFW applicants in placement fees, peddling of false overseas employment information and the non-issuance of official receipts for payments collected from OFWs,” she said.
Migrante also said that the court’s decision “bolsters Sections 29 and 30 of RA 8042 — the deregulation and phase-out of government functions on recruitment activities — which is actually government abandonment of its role to protect OFWs.”
“The Manila Court has decided in favor of the big-time recruiters over OFWs who fall prey to many nefarious schemes of licensed agencies. RA 8042 in itself is a defective law that is made much worse with this anti-OFW court decision. Victims of illegal recruitment acts will have a harder time pursuing cases against the criminal agencies,” Bragas-Regalado said.
She said Migrante would continue lobbying at the appropriate legislative bodies for “a better law to govern all concerns of overseas Filipino workers.
“What the grossly unjust and unfair Manila Court decision has done is embolden illegal recruiters and again place OFWs into a hapless situation. We will contest this latest attack on our rights in all avenues possible,” she said.
