15 MARCH 2019

COMMENTARY
4 Friday, 15 March 2019
Daily Tribune
Daily
Tribune
WITHOUT FEAR • WITHOUT FAVOR
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
Crispin G. Martinez
Chito Lozada
Dinah Ventura
Aldrin Cardona
John Henry Dodson
Jun Vallecera
Jaimes R. C. Sumbilon
Larry Payawal
Komfie Manalo
Patricia Ramos
Board Chair
Willie Fernandez
Publisher and President
Founding Chair
Executive Editor
Managing Editor
Associate Editors
Business Editor
Central Desk
Special Reports
Mar without
principle
“Jueteng
lords are
milking
cows of
politicians,
particularly
during an
election
year.
Otso Diretso candidate Mar Roxas received
another tongue-lashing from President Rody
Duterte Thursday night calling him without
principle primarily referring to his lackluster
stint in government.
“Not because you are a namesake
of Roxas (former President Manuel
Roxas), you’re good. He is nobody who
pretends to be somebody. He doesn’t have
any principle, nothing to speak of,” Duterte
said in his speech during the campaign rally of
Partido Demokratiko Pilipino’s senatorial bets
in Cauayan City, Isabela.
Roxas served as Secretary of Transportation
and Communications and Secretary of Interior
and Local Government from 2011 to 2012 and 2012
to 2015, respectively, under the Aquino administration.
The claim of Rody may have referred to their 2016
faceoff when Mar tried to pull all the tricks in the
yellow bag in his vain attempt to ensure victory in
the presidential race.
Among such dirty rotten maneuvers was his effort
to secure the highly-classified records of the Philippine
Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) on Bingo Milyonaryo
operators that was a game platform which was conceived
mainly as a ploy to draw out and identify jueteng operators.
The operation of Bingo Milyonaryo was similar to the
illegal numbers game and was practically allowed to be used
as a front for jueteng operations.
The effort of Roxas to secure the list, however,
encountered a kink after then PCSO Chairman Margie Juico
refused to hand over the list to Roxas.
Roxas then went to Noynoy for him to issue a letter
directing Juico to release the list.
The Bingo Milyonaryo contracts have then become so
highly priced that competing jueteng and swertres operators
reportedly launch vicious wars against each other to get
these despite the small income that the gambling operations
showed.
Mar needed to get Noynoy to order in a memo Juico and
her clique at the PCSO to open up the data mine on the
jueteng-like Bingo Milyonaryo.
Noynoy in signing the memorandum indicated to Juico
and her group that Roxas has his sanction to do whatever
he wanted and even referred to him as his “alter ego.”
Jueteng lords are milking cows of politicians, particularly
during an election year.
The tone of desperation can even be perceived in what
was likely the memo drafted by Mar and signed by Noynoy
to cow Juico and her cohorts into submission.
The President in his memo to Juico said: “It is therefore
both disappointing and embarrassing to know that an agency
directly attached to the Office of the President has refused
to respond to formal and reasonable requests coming from
the Secretary of the Interior and Local Government who
is considered an alter ego of the President himself. I find
PCSO’s refusal inexcusable and unjustified considering
that these requests are proper and legitimate, guided by
instructions from the President.”
The game then has a private operator,
“The operation
of Bingo
Milyonaryo was
similar to the
illegal numbers
game and was
practically
allowed to be
used as a front
for jueteng
operations.
Comnet Management Corp., a company that
has ties to former Philippine Long Distance
Telephone Co. chair Antonio “Tonyboy”
Cojuangco, Noynoy’s second cousin.
Roxas then gave a lame excuse for his
desperation to obtain the PCSO list as
he said “I was asking (for information)
because P-Noy instructed me to look into
what Bingo Milyonaryo was all about after
he heard or read about it. The matter
became moot because as I understand, it
did not push through. Other than this, I have had no other
dealing with Chairperson Margie.”
Later on, Juico, a yellow lady close to the Aquinos, was
booted out and an LP member, former Cavite Gov. Erineo
“Ayong” Maliksi, took her place and for sure Roxas obtained
what he wanted.
Jueteng is estimated to earn for its operators P50 billion
a year and it is the gambling lords that candidates run to
during election years.
Rody should know what he is talking about when he
tackles corruption and Roxas based on information that he
gets deep from people who were around when the yellow
rampage was ongoing.
“It is in
justifying
the House
leaders’
unconstitutional
amendments
that Castro,
like Rolando
Andaya,
has exposed
himself
to be a
constitutionally
deficient
congressman
and a
perennial
fabricator.
“The
law also
makes
accountable
not just
those
actually
engaged
in illegal
recruitment,
but also
those who
have aided
or in
any way
assisted
them in
doing so.
For the love, lust of pork
Refusing to budge
from its position in
not giving in to the
Senate’s move for both
chambers to submit the
ratified twin bills for the
President’s signature,
House Majority Leader
Fredenil Castro the other
day insisted there was
nothing unconstitutional
in the House’s stand in
itemizing lump sum funds
in the ratified bicameral
report on this year’s national budget
which has been long delayed.
This delay will impact on the
government’s infrastructure projects
that will generate more jobs and
negatively affect the growth of the
country’s economy which is already
expected to slow some more.
But this doesn’t seem to disturb the
conscience — assuming these pork hungry
legislators have one — of the lawmakers
and their leaders, Castro and other
House leaders along with their allies.
even insist on the constitutionality
of the House insertions even after
congressional ratification of the
2019 budget.
Castro argued that
insertions are constitutional
since the President has yet to
sign the budget bill into law.
Whatever happened to their
logic? Has
it been
clouded
by their
desire to
ensure they get the pork through
such unconstitutional itemization
of the budget after ratification, and
of course, their insistence on the
projects not being placed under cash
basis,
One study found that there are
about 2.3 million overseas Filipino
workers (OFW) scattered globally at
any given time. With an estimated
number of 4,500 OFW leave the country
daily, it is no surprise that job seekers
continue to flock recruitment agencies
in search of greener pastures abroad.
But with hefty placement fees
and rising costs associated with a
foreign employment application, it is
not uncommon for applicants to leave
the country penniless, often after
mortgaging their homes or farm lots
and borrowing at sky-high interests. All
these, with the hope that the sacrifice
and indebtedness would all be worth it.
To protect those seeking foreign
employment and to curb the alarming
rise in the number of fly-by-night
recruitment agencies, the Labor Code,
as amended, prohibits and punishes the
act of enlisting, contracting or procuring
workers for employment abroad, whether
for profit or not, without a license issued
by the Philippine Overseas Employment
Agency (POEA).
The law assumes that a non-licensee
who, in any manner, offers or promises
for a fee employment abroad to at
least two persons is engaged in illegal
recruitment.
It is not only non-licensed recruiters
who are in violation of the law. Even
licensed recruiters act illegally when they:
(a) charge or accept directly or
indirectly any amount greater than the
specified in the schedule of allowable
fees prescribed by the Secretary of
Labor and Employment, or make a
worker pay any amount greater than
that actually received by him as a loan
or advance;
(b) furnish or publish any false
notice or information or document in
relation to recruitment or employment;
(c) give any false notice, testimony,
information or document or commit
any act of misrepresentation for the
purpose of securing the requisite
license for recruitment;
(d) induce or attempt to induce
a worker already employed to quit
his employment in order to offer him
another unless the transfer is designed
to liberate a worker from oppressive
terms and conditions of employment;
(e) influence or attempt to
influence any persons or entity not to
employ any worker who has not applied
for employment through his agency;
(f) engage in the recruitment of
placement of workers in jobs harmful to
public health or morality or to dignity
of the Republic of the Philippines;
(g) obstruct or attempt to obstruct
inspection by the Secretary of Labor
FRONTLINE
Ninez Cacho-Olivares
as they may not get
their “pork” on time,
considering that some
of the House leaders,
and congressmen-allies
are graduating by 30
June officially?
What is really
strange in the House
leaders and their
allies’ insistence on
the constitutionality of
their act of “itemizing”
the lump sums despite
the two houses of Congress having
ratified the budget is the fact that
they are not only prostituting the
Constitution and its pertinent
provisions, but they also elevate
themselves as above and beyond the
collegial body of the House which
had already ratified the 2019 budget
early last month.
These House leaders, through
their act, are actually saying they
are more powerful than the House
body itself, that is constitutionally
mandated to approve and ratify the
national budgets.
By going against the House and
the Senate ratified and therefore
final approved budget, and insisting
on their illegal and unconstitutional
stance of insertions and itemization
after congressional ratification,
these House leaders are, in fact,
usurping the constitutional power of
the two chambers having the final say
in approving the budget through their
separate ratifications of it.
As things stand with these House
leaders’ assertion of constitutionality
in relation to their act of budget
insertions even after approval of the
bicam conference, further approved
by the two chambers through
ratification, these House leaders are
in fact, arrogating unto themselves
the power vested in the bicameral
committee and ratified by the two
legislative bodies — and all because
they want their pork, despite their
clearly unconstitutional positioning.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who insists
that no amendment can be made
to a measure already approved on
third and final reading and moreover,
ratified by the two chambers, was
slammed by the House Majority
Leader, with Castro saying Lacson is
wrong as he compares the process of
passing a budget law, or the General
Greener pastures abroad eyed
and Employment or
by his duly authorized
representative;
(h) fail to submit
reports on the status of
employment, placement
vacancies, remittances
of foreign exchange
earnings, separations
from jobs, departures
and such other matters
or information as may
be required by the
Secretary of Labor and
Employment;
(i) substitute or alter to the
prejudice of the worker, employment
contracts approved and verified by the
Department of Labor and Employment
from the time of actual signing thereof
by the parties up to and including the
period of the expiration of the same
without the approval of the Department
of Labor and Employment;
(j) For an officer or
agent of a recruitment
or placement agency
to become an
officer or member
of the Board of any
corporation engaged
in travel agency or to
be engaged directly
or indirectly in the
management of a
travel agency;
(k) withhold or
deny travel documents
from applicant workers
before departure for
monetary or financial
considerations other
than those authorized
under the Labor Code
and its implementing
rules and regulations;
(l) fail to actually deploy without
valid reasons as determined by the
Department of Labor and Employment,
and
(m) failure to reimburse expenses
incurred by the workers in connection
with his documentation and processing
for purposes of deployment, in cases
where the deployment does not actually
take place without the worker’s fault.
When illegal recruitment is
committed by a syndicate (that is,
carried out by a group of three or more
persons conspiring or confederating
with one another) or in large scale
(if committed against three or more
persons individually or as a group), it
shall be considered as offense involving
economic sabotage. Bail is not a matter
of right when a person is charged
in court with illegal recruitment
A DOSE OF LAW
Dean Nilo Divina
“It is not
uncommon
for
applicants
to leave
the
country
penniless,
often after
mortgaging
their
homes
or farm
lots and
borrowing
at sky-high
interests.
Appropriations Act (GAA), to that of
an ordinary bill.
Castro added in the budget law,
only the period of legislation and the
period of implementation are taken
into consideration.
“When we say period of legislation,
including the bicameral conference
report up to the time that even before
the President signs it, that is still
period of legislation,” Castro said.
“And when we say period of
legislation, this means that
amendments are permitted provided
that you do not alter what has been
agreed upon and the amount of lump
sum appropriation contained in the
bicameral conference report,” he
added.
“These
House
leaders are
actually
saying they
are more
powerful
than the
House body
itself, that is
constitutionally
mandated
to approve
and ratify
the national
“Once the
President has already
signed the budget
into law, it is the time
where the period
of implementation
sets in. And during
which time, you
may no longer
tinker with what
has already been
approved because
that will already
be post-enactment
amendment,” he said.
Castro can say
this even when
he knows this
goes against the
budgets.
constitutional grain?
The explanation from Castro is too
much of a stretch that goes against
what the Constitution says to the
point of him looking like a fool. It
is in justifying the House leaders’
unconstitutional amendments that
Castro, like Rolando Andaya, has
exposed himself to be a constitutionally
deficient congressman and a perennial
fabricator.
They don’t even know that Section
26 article 4 explicitly mandates that
upon the last third reading of a bill, NO
further amendment shall be allowed?
If that constitutional section is not
clear enough to these House leaders,
they are either fatally deficient
in constitutional matters that
translates to their being unfit House
leaders, or they know just what the
1987 Constitution says, but willfully
violate it anyway, for the love and lust
of the unconstitutional pork.
committed by a syndicate
or in large scale.
In recognition of the
fact that some of these
fly-by-night recruiters
succeed through
clandestine referrals,
the law also makes
accountable not just
those actually engaged
in illegal recruitment,
but also those who have
aided or in any way
assisted them in doing so.
In case of juridical persons such
as corporations, the officers having
control, management or direction of
their business are liable. Even a mere
employee of a company or corporation
can be engaged in illegal recruitment
once it is shown that he had actively
and consciously participated in illegal
recruitment.
A person who commits illegal
recruitment may be imprisoned for
12 to 20 years and fined P1,000,000 to
P2,000,000.
Aside from being liable for illegal
recruitment as defined and punished
under the Labor Code, as amended,
a person engaged in the foregoing
prohibited acts may also be liable for
estafa under the Revised Penal Code
(RPC).
In the 2016 case of People vs
Marissa Bayker (G.R. 170192, 10
February 2016), the Supreme Court
(SC) clarified that a person involved in
illegal recruitment committed in large
scale may also be charged, personally,
with the crime of estafa.
The elements of estafa as charged
are, namely: (1) the accused defrauded
another by abuse of confidence or by
means of deceit; and (2) the offended
party, or a third party suffered damage
or prejudice capable of pecuniary
estimation. In contrast, the crime of
illegal recruitment committed in large
scale requires different elements.
The SC clarified the active
representation by the accused of having
the capacity to deploy abroad despite not
having the authority or license to do so
from the POEA constituted deceit as the
first element of estafa. Her representation
induced the victim to part with his money,
resulting in damage that is the second
element of the estafa.
Thus, a person who is not licensed
to recruit a person for employment
abroad, and who takes money from
another person in pursuance of such
promised employment, may be liable
for both illegal recruitment and estafa.
Email: cabdo@divinalaw.com
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