House OKs on third reading bill redefining illegal recruitment to aid prosecution

The House of Representatives approved on third and final reading Tuesday a bill that would make it easier to prosecute human traffickers by redefining an illegal recruitment syndicate as a group of two or more persons.

A total of 260 lawmakers voted in favor of House Bill 7718 which amends the existing meaning of an illegal recruitment syndicate as a group of three or more persons.

“This will make it easier for government prosecutors to file and prosecute the crime of  illegal recruitment committed by a syndicate in the case of non-licensees or  non-holders of authorities, as two or more persons conspiring or confederating with one another would be sufficient,” the committee report on the measure read.

“We see this proposed law as an added protection for our hardworking OFWs and an effort to strengthen further our efforts in deterring illegal recruitment and giving justice to OFWs who fall prey to illegal recruitment,” Speaker Martin Romualdez said in a separate statement.

The Migrant Workers Act defines illegal recruitment as “any act of canvassing, enlisting, contracting, transporting, utilizing, hiring, or procuring workers and includes referring, contract services, promising or advertising for employment abroad, whether for profit or not when undertaken by non-licensee or non-holder of authority.”

The law penalizes perpetrators of illegal recruitment with a prison time of 12 to 20 years and a fine of P1 million to P2 million.

Likewise, the same law provides that if the illegal recruitment constitutes economic sabotage meaning committed by a syndicate, the penalty of life imprisonment and a P2 million to P5 million are imposed.

One of the high-profile victims of human trafficking syndicate in the Philippines is Mary Jane Veloso, who has been meted a death sentence by an Indonesian court for being caught with 2.6 kilos of heroin in Yogyakarta in 2010.

Veloso, who has maintained innocence, said the illegal drugs were sewn in the seams of a suitcase which was a gift to her by her recruiters in the Philippines.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo has asked Indonesia President Joko Widodo to grant Veloso executive clemency. 

President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., who went to Indonesia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit, has said that he will continue to ask Indonesian authorities to save Mary Jane’s life through pardon or commutation of sentence.

Veloso was supposed to be executed by a firing squad in April 2015, but last minute appeal from then-President Benigno Aquino III and the arrest of Veloso's recruiters in the Philippines prompted Jokowi to spare her life.—AOL, GMA Integrated News