Modern-day heroes and slaves

ON DISTANT SHORE
By Val G. Abelgas

The problem of trafficking of Filipinos in the United States came to the fore again last week when 25 teachers who were victimized by unscrupulous recruiters went to the Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C. to again air their grievance and seek the help of Ambassador Jose Cuisia Jr. for a resolution of their case.

The ambassador assured them that the Philippine government would continue to seek justice for them. At the same time, Cuisia encouraged some 500 more teachers in the US who were victims of illegal recruiters to step out of the shadows so the embassy could assist them in seeking immigration relief.

The relief that Cuisia was referring to was the T Visa, which is granted to victims of human trafficking in the US. Some of the 300 Filipino teachers brought into the US with a false promise of teaching jobs have been able to legalize their stay as victims of human trafficking.

Cuisia said the Philippine government is continuing to look for the recruiter, Isidro Rodriguez, who has been missing since being released from detention despite charges of illegal recruitment, alien smuggling, visa fraud and human trafficking both in the US and in the Philippines.

From 2003 to 2007, Rodriguez was alleged to have recruited as many as 1,000 teachers whom he allegedly was able to convince to pay from $10,000 to $15,000 each for non-existing jobs in various public schools across the US.

The case of the teachers recruited by Rodriguez was just one of many such incidents of human trafficking of Filipinos in the US. In 2010 alone, there were several recorded cases, including the following:

• A Filipino couple, identified as Maximino “Max” Morales, 44, and his wife, Melinda Morales, 46, were arrested by the FBI in April 2010 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 US, and then smuggled into the US on transit visas. Once the victims arrived in the US, they were forced to work entire days for as many as seven days a week, with little pay. 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 on April 16, 2010 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 holding them in virtual servitude for keeping their visas. 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, 2010 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 US, 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 US, 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.”

• The FBI investigated in 2010 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.

I am aghast at the courage of these illegal recruiters to challenge the US’ tough laws 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.

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 limit prevention and prosecution of cases.

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 $25-billion annual remittance has been buoying up the Philippine economy for decades.

Overseas Filipino workers have been hailed as “modern-day heroes.” Unfortunately, tens of thousands of them have also become “modern-day slaves.”

(valabelgas@aol.com)