Filipina missionary accuses Saipan ‘employers’ of illegal labor practices

SAN ANTONIO, Saipan – Rowena C. Briones left the Philippines for Saipan on March 10, 2007 as a tourist “sponsored" by businesswoman Bienvenida Camacho, who instructed her to later on apply for a missionary permit. Briones also worked as a meeting hall caretaker and laundrywoman with a promised salary of $300 a month by Camacho. But Briones was not paid a single cent. She was not allowed to leave the house to do missionary work and endured sleeping in a bedroom, which was converted into a storage room. She lives in Camacho’s house. With an approved missionary permit on Aug. 1, 2007, Briones was purportedly sponsored by the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association Inc. (PBMAI) but she was put to work doing various tasks under the supervision and instruction of Camacho. Briones, in a labor complaint, said the missionaries group is merely a “front" for Camacho to hire foreign workers even though she’s banned from doing so. In March 2007, the Department of Labor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) banned Camacho from hiring foreign workers because of fraud, “coercion" of Filipino workers “into performing acts of a sexual nature," non-payment of wages, and illegal confinement of workers. Briones said PBMAI also sponsored three other former Filipino workers to become missionaries. PBMAI is a pseudo-Christian cult founded by Ruben Ecleo Sr. in 1965 on the Philippine island of Dinagat, off Mindanao Island. The Federal Labor Ombudsman’s Office, which assists foreign workers in CNMI fight for their rights, asked the Department of Labor to investigate Camacho and PBMAI. “Upon information and belief, the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association Inc. is merely a front for Ms. Camacho to continue to employ foreign national workers, even though she was permanently barred from doing so by the Administrative Hearing Officer in Labor Case No. 05-168," Federal Labor Ombudsman Jim Benedetto said in a Sept. 10 letter to CNMI Deputy Labor Secretary Jacinta Kaipat. During Briones’s stay at the businesswoman’s house in China Town in Saipan, she endured living in a room with a stack of chairs that could fall any moment on the bed where she sleeps. What was originally a room in Camacho’s house for Briones to stay became a storage room. “Instead of removing the chairs, she got mad at me," Briones said in a complaint filed with the CNMI Department of Labor on July 28, 2008. Briones said Camacho didn’t want her to leave her house to do missionary work. This, she said, caused her to leave Camacho’s house on Dec. 25, 2007. “After leaving her house, I continued my work as a missionary," said Briones. In her complaint, Briones asked Labor to grant her the payment of wages for the period she worked for from March 11, 2007 to Dec. 25, 2007, reimburse her the $431, which Camacho collected from her for airline ticket, and liquidated damages in an equal amount. Bickering and deportation Briones’s complaint of unpaid labor, illegal confinement and illegal sponsorship by both Camacho and the PBMAI is also now caught in crossfire between the CNMI Department of Labor and the Federal Labor Ombudsman’s Office over jurisdiction and funding. Kaipat, the CNMI deputy labor secretary, in a Sept. 12 response to the request for investigation against Camacho and PBMAI, said the Department of Labor does not have jurisdiction over Briones who entered the CNMI as a tourist and that the department does not deal with the employment of persons with missionary permit. Kaipat also blamed Benedetto, then the federal labor ombudsman, for preventing the CNMI Department of Labor from accessing federal funds to help in this kind of investigations. Benedetto has since left the Federal Labor Ombudsman’s Office to work for the US Attorney’s Office. While a labor agency case has yet to be opened against Camacho and PBMAI, Briones is facing deportation from the CNMI. Her missionary permit under section 706M of the CNMI Immigration Regulations expired on Aug. 1, 2008. In her complaint, Briones asked Labor to grant her a transfer relief, extend her stay in the CNMI for litigation purposes, and to issue her a memorandum to seek temporary employment. She asked for the payment of her wages for the period she worked from March 11, 2007 to Dec. 25, 2007. Briones is one of the estimated 10,000 Filipinos currently living and working in the CNMI, which is about three hours away from Manila by plane. - Haidee Eugenio, GMANews.TV