|
DESPERATE with the run around given them by some
government agencies, some 65 victims of illegal recruitment decided
to seek the help of the influential Catholic Bishops’ Conference
of the Philippines (CBCP) confident to get the justice they have
long been seeking for.
Fr. Edwin Corros, executive
secretary, CBCP Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of
Migrants and Itinerant People (CBCP-ECMI), on Monday identified the
recruitment firm as PMAC International Management Services Inc. with
business address at 2/F Cabrera III Bldg., 18 Timog Avenue, Quezon
City.
Corros has brought the matter to
Bishop Warlito Cajandig of the Apostolic Vicariate of Calapan for
immediate action.
“We are bringing this matter
for your evaluation and for possible instruction particularly to
your clergy and to the parish, in which the involved recruiter is
residing, for them to be informed and alarmed,” Corros, in his
letter to the Cajandig, said.
“The complainants are very
desperate at this time. The only agency that they are trusting right
now is the Church. The CBCP-ECMI is doing its best effort to
facilitate this concern and in fact we are requesting for a meeting
with the POEA administrator,” Corros said.
He stressed that immediate
attention should be given to the victims to enable them to move on
and restore their broken lives, adding that some of the victims have
lost their permanent jobs and even their properties.
The complainants, led by one
Mario Santos, said the firm is owned by Deogracias Panganiban, a
mayoralty candidate in the town of Pola, Oriental Mindoro.
According to Santos, 30 of them
were recruited in January 2006 by PMAC for employment in the United
States and were made to pay placement fees ranging from P60,000 to
P200,000.
But after more than eight months
of waiting the agency failed to deploy them for the promised jobs.
The victims filed their
complaints with the POEA adjudication office on September 6, 2006,
but the agency has yet to decide on the case. Before the filing of
case at the POEA, complaints were also filed at the National Bureau
of Investigation.
The CBCP-ECMI said that the
victims also filed complaints with the offices of Vice-President
Noli de Castro and Justice Secretary Raul M. Gonzalez “but there
was no response from their offices until this time.”
Corros said, “The Church
intervention is very important at this time. Informing our people on
this matter is one of the best options that we can do. More
particularly, what we are so concerned about right now is that Mr.
Panganiban is running for public office.”
Contacted by The Manila Times,
Panganiban denied the accusations against him, saying that it was
politically motivated. He refused to elaborate further, saying that
the matter is now in court.
The PMAC is license recruitment
agency. The POEA granted its license on March 21, 2004, and valid
until March 20, 2008.
Records at the POEA also showed
that there were 31 pending cases against the PMAC for various
violations of recruitment rules.
--William B. Depasupil
|
