De Lima bill toughens law vs illegal job recruitment

AS labor authorities air warnings against stepped up activities by criminal syndicates exploiting the tightening market for migrant workers amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Sen. Leila M. de Lima has filed a bill to toughen the law against illegal recruitment.

De Lima filed Senate Bill (SB) 1466, which redefines the crime of illegal recruitment committed by a syndicate by lowering the number of perpetrators from three to two to qualify as large-scale illegal recruitment.

The bill seeks to address the injustice suffered by overseas Filipino workers (OFWS) in the hands of illegal recruiters by amending Article 38 of Presidential Decree 442, or the “Labor Code of the Philippines,” as amended and Section 6 of Republic Act (RA) 8042, or the “Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995,” as amended.

“Illegal recruitment is a great menace to our society. It is one of the most detestable crimes a Filipino can commit to a fellow Filipino; a crime that has brought about sufferings to thousands of poor and innocent victims and their families,” she said.

“Under the present set up, persons accused of illegal recruitment by a syndicate may evade the penalty as provided by the existing law, by simply alleging that the victim failed to establish that the crime was carried out by a group of three or more persons, conspiring, or confederating with one another.

Under the present law, illegal recruitment by a syndicate is meted with life imprisonment and a fine of not less than P2 million but not more than P5 million.

In filing the measure, de Lima cited the case of Mary Jane Veloso, a human trafficking victim convicted for carrying 2.6 kilograms of heroin at the Yogyakarta Airport in 2010, as she continues to be at the brink of death to this date.

Last October 11, 2019, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals’ ruling and allowed Veloso to testify via a deposition in a local trafficking case against her recruiters. That deposition was being required by Indonesian authorities who had earlier withheld enforcement of her death sentence for being a drug mule. The Jakarta government had said Veloso should establish her victim status in order to completely reverse the death sentence imposed on her by an Indonesian court.

“This is perhaps just one of the most heart wrenching realities of some of our countrymen who fly abroad, dreaming of better futures for their families but instead finding themselves trapped and helpless in a foreign country,” de Lima said.

If her bill is enacted into law, de Lima said illegal recruitment will be deemed committed by a syndicate if carried out by two, instead of three, or more persons conspiring or confederating with one another.