Modern-day slavery

ON DISTANT SHORE
by Val G. Abelgas

Lately, we have been reading disturbing reports of Filipino workers being recruited in the Philippines purportedly for good-paying jobs in the United States and Canada, only to find themselves exploited and abused by unscrupulous recruiters on a distant shore where they feel hopeless and helpless. And I thought slavery was abolished after a bloody civil war in 1865 with the 13th amendment to the US Constitution.
Just consider the following news reports this year alone to gauge how prevalent human trafficking into the United States from the Philippines has been:

• A Filipino couple, identified as Maximino “Max” Morales, 44, and his wife, Melinda Morales, 46, were arrested by the FBI in April in Paso Robles after an investigation found that the couple smuggled Filipino nationals and forced them to work as caregivers in their nursing homes for little or no pay. The federal complaint alleged that the victims were recruited by the couple with promises of work in the United States, and then smuggled into the US on transit visas. Once the victims arrived in the United States, they were forced to work entire days for as many as seven days a week, with little pay. Additionally, the couple confiscated the victims’ passports and threatened to harm their families and/or deport them if they left prior to paying off their debt. According to the affidavit, the caregivers worked 24-hour shifts with no regular days off, and slept in closets, hallways, and garages with no heat.

• A Philippine-based recruiting company, Universal Placement International (UPI), with satellite office in Los Angeles, California, and its Filipino owner, Lourdes “Lulu” Navarro, were ordered last April 16 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to pay an “estimated $1.8-million in illegally-charged placement fees, a well as a $500 fine and $7,500 in attorney fees for allegedly cheating 200 Filipino teachers of thousands of dollars in recruiting fees and held them in virtual servitude for keeping their visas. Some of those teachers arrived in the U.S. only to find that the promised jobs were not available. Eventually, some wound up in Avoyelles Parish and other school districts around the state. Each teacher was charged about $5,000 by Navarro in placement fees to obtain a job, and was then required to sign a contract obligating them to pay 10-percent of their second-year salaries to the company. Teachers who could not afford to pay the fees up front were directed to loan companies by Navarro, and were charged exorbitant interest rates.

• A Florida couple pleaded guilty on September 17 to conspiring to hold 39 Filipino employees against their will working in country clubs and hotels. The US Justice Department said Sophia Manuel, 41, and Alfonso Baldonado Jr., 45, were owners of a labor contracting service based in the Florida city of Boca Raton.
Manuel and Baldonado promised the workers high wages and two to three years of steady work in the United States, then had the workers pay “substantial recruitment fees, including their airfare,” which put them in debt to their US-based employers.
 Once the workers were in the United States, the defendants “compelled the victims’ labor and services through threats to have the workers arrested and deported, knowing the workers faced serious economic harm and possible incarceration for non-payment of debts in the Philippines. When the workers arrived at Manuel and Baldonado’s Florida residence, the couple confiscated their passports and “housed them in overcrowded, substandard conditions without adequate food or drinking water; put them to work at area country clubs and hotels for little or no pay; required them to remain in the defendants’ service, unpaid, when there was insufficient work.”

• POEA Administrator Jennifer Jardin-Manalili said the Philippine Embassy in Ottawa has received complaints from several Filipino nurses who were allegedly recruited by a recruiting agent from the US named Agerico Casey Gabriel (a.k.a. Casey Gabriel) or under the name of Medical caregiver Management. Gabriel’s modus operandi is to introduce himself as an agent of Medical Link or other legitimate US-based nurse recruiting agency. He usually holds a recruitment conference without asking any money from the victims. After gaining their trust, he then asks for money allegedly for escrow payments required for visas to “complete the process.” However, the president of Medical Link and Sam Switzer of another agency have denied any on-going recruitment for foreign nurses and any knowledge of one Agerico Casey Gabriel.

• The FBI is investigating a complaint filed by Rufino de Guzman Jr. who said he and 23 other Filipinos were recruited as seasonal worker for a big American company. They paid their recruiter $6,000 for a job contract that guaranteed a salary of $7.25 an hour. The workers arrived in the US in July. But instead of going to Virginia, where they signed contracts to become waiters, they were driven to Mississippi, where they were told to sign another contract, but not for the jobs or salaries for which they signed up. They were hired as housekeepers instead of waiters for $4.75 per room, instead of $7.25 per hour. Their new contract with Royal Hospitality Services required them to clean up to 18 rooms a day, which, De Guzman said, was close to impossible to finish. De Guzman said the recruiters confiscated their passports and threatened to have them deported if they resisted the new jobs.

Donn Duero, welfare officer of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration in the US who is currently based in Los Angeles, said that one of the avenues used by illegal recruiters to bring in Filipino workers into the US is the H2B visa (temporary workers and trainees/seasonal agricultural workers), He said that in 2007, a total of 2,480 Filipinos entered the US using an H2B visa; 3,684 in 2008; and 1,870 in 2009.
Duero, who is helping De Guzman while awaiting investigation of his complaint against his recruiters, is asking others with similar problems to contact his office.
OWWA E-mail: owwausa@yahoo.com Phone: (661) 878-6149 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (661) 878-6149      end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

I am aghast at the courage of these illegal recruiters to challenge the tough laws of the United States against human smuggling and trafficking. I am amazed that despite strict rules and regulations imposed by the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security, these recruiters have been able to forge documents and smuggle these workers into the country.

And I thought it could happen only to workers being recruited for Middle East and Southeast Asia, where tens of thousands of Filipinos have to suffer physical, emotional and sexual abuse from employers because of cruel deception by illegal recruiters, and where tens of thousands more are stranded because there was no work waiting for them and they have no money to go back home.

And that’s only one side of the problem. Think of the parents and other relatives who had to pawn or sell properties, get loans at usurious rates, and borrow from friends and relatives. Think of the pain and frustration that these soul-less illegal recruiters are inflicting on their victims and the victims’ families. Think of the vanished dreams and the shattered future.

What is even more revolting is that the recruiters in the Philippines are never prosecuted despite the rampant crimes that they commit. The US State Department 2010 Trafficking in Person (TIP) report said of the 228 human trafficking cases reported by law enforcement agencies to the Philippine Department of Justice, only eight individuals in five sex trafficking cases were actually convicted, and that includes two persons who remain at large.

A major hindrance, the report said, was “widespread corruption” and “an inefficient judicial system” that severely limits prevention and prosecution of cases.

“Corruption remained pervasive in the Philippines, and there were reports that officials in government units and agencies assigned to enforce laws against human trafficking permitted trafficking offenders to conduct illegal activities, either tacitly or explicitly,” it added.

The US State Department urged the government to work harder in efficiently investigating, prosecuting and convicting both labor and sex trafficking offenders involved in the trafficking of Filipinos in the country and abroad. It is widely believed that some government officials partner with traffickers and organized trafficking syndicates, or at least permit trafficking operations in the country, and that law enforcement officers often extract protection money from illegal businesses, including brothels, the State Department report added.
The desperation and willingness of Filipinos to pay huge sums for uncertain jobs are a testament to the failure of the Philippine government to provide jobs to its people.

The continued exodus of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos yearly to find better jobs in countries all over the world remains unabated and the government seems to encourage them despite the risks that these Filipinos face and the adverse social and emotional impact that the departures leave on the workers’ families.

Just like it should in jueteng, the Aquino administration must show its resolve to eradicate the problem of human trafficking and illegal recruitment. The country owes so much to overseas Filipino workers, whose nearly $20-billion annual remittance has been buoying up the Philippine economy for decades. It is only fair and proper that the government protect them from these predators. They deserve no less.

(valabelgas@aol.com)