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By Nora O. Gamolo, Senior Desk
Editor
The Sentosa 27, through their
counsel Felix Vinluan filed, sometime in April 2006, administrative
cases in the Philippines against the Sentosa Group’s local
company, the Sentosa Recruitment Agency. They accused SRA of
violating Philippine Overseas Employment Administration
recruitment rules and regulations.
All labor recruiters must hold a
POEA license to operate. Acting on the nurses’ complaints,
POEA Administrator Rosalinda Baldoz signed a preventive suspension
decree against SRA on May 24, 2006 to prevent further
“exploitation” [of Filipino nurses], the order said.
Surprisingly, POEA’s suspension
order was lifted less than two weeks later on June 8, 2006. It
was apparently the result of New York Senator Charles Schumer’s
intercession on behalf of Sentosa Care. He wrote two Filipino labor
officials responsible for the action, POEA Administrator Baldoz and
then Labor Sec. Patricia Sto. Tomas. The American senator also
wrote New York Consul General Cecilia Rebong and President Gloria
Arroyo.
The senator reportedly asked the
officials to meet with SentosaCare’s executives or to “consider
reviewing” the Woodmere company’s case after POEA suspended the
company’s Philippine affiliate.
The lifting of the suspension
astonished the Sentosa 27 nurses’ families, as well as labor,
legal and media observers. Normally, officials said, companies
are suspended for months as investigations and hearings are
conducted. Lifting a POEA suspension in less than a fortnight
is extraordinary.
Sentosa 27++ supporters charged
that Schumer’s intervention was a payback for the Sentosa
Group’s support for his senatorial bid. Sentosa, they said,
is actually a powerhouse. Two American journalists, Michael
Amon and Ridgely Ochs, said this in their article in Newsday.
Sentosa Care and its network of
nursing homes and subcontractors had given Schumer’s 2004
re-election and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee a total
of $123,816 before he wrote the letters to the Filipino officials.
It contributed more to the
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee some $74,480 months after
Schumer wrote his letters. All in all, the Democrats raised $120
million for the 2006 election from supporters like Sentosa.
Said Amon and Ochs in their
article, “[While] Sentosa Care’s Filipino recruitment pipeline
was back in business (over) the next two months, a national campaign
fund headed by Schumer received nearly $75,000 from investors,
attorneys and vendors for Sentosa Care-affiliated nursing homes.”
“In the last decade, its
executives, investors and subcontractors have donated more than
$750,000 to political campaign funds for both major parties. Nearly
$198,000 of the largesse went to Schumer’s re-election campaign
and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee—led by Schumer
and credited with restoring Democratic control of the Senate after
the 2006 mid-term elections,” the article continues.
“Sentosa Care has quietly
emerged as the largest for-profit nursing home group in [New York].
More than one in seven nursing home beds on Long Island are at
Sentosa Care facilities,” said the writing duo.
SentosaCare is “a company that
elected officials listen to, if for no other reason than sheer size
. . . Its owners—Benjamin Landa of Brooklyn and Bent Philipson of
upstate Monsey—control 25 nursing homes in New York, 10 on Long
Island. More than 22 percent of Nassau County’s 7,777 nursing home
beds are in Sentosa Care facilities, according to the Health
Department. The group is smaller in Suffolk, accounting for 6
percent of 8,657 beds,” said Amon and Ochs.
In May 2002, Sentosa Recruitment
Agency was founded in Manila by a Filipino nurse at one of Landa’s
nursing homes. It has since recruited 364 Filipino nurses for
Sentosa Care facilities, flying them to New York, helping them
obtain green cards, pass New York state exams and all at no charge.
SRA’s operations got cramped
in late 2004 and early 2005, when the Philippines exhausted its
quota for EB-3 visas that the US awards to skilled foreign workers.
The Democrats came to the rescue.
With Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Charles Schumer inserted
language into the 2005 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for
Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief allowing the
Philippines, China and India to use up to 50,000 visas left unused
by other countries.
Ironically, “The Filipino
nurses benefited from this initiative, including the Sentosa
nurses,” said SRA counsel Ibarro Relamida.
On September 26, 2006, Senate
Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel gave a privileged speech accusing
then Presidential Chief of Staff Michael Defensor of influence
peddling. He quoted POEA Administrator Baldoz’s public
admission that Defensor had called called her up about her SRA
suspension order. It was not clear if Defensor was interceding
for Sentosa for himself or for someone else, perhaps the President
or someone else in the Palace. Pimentel charged that Defensor
actually called up Baldoz twice.
In late February, the National
Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) dismissed the cases filed by the
aggrieved professionals. They had sued SRA for alleged illegal
dismissal; non-payment of salaries, overtime pay, vacation pay, sick
leave pay, night shift differential etc. promised reimbursement of
licensure and certificate expenses; and non-payment of their
professional liability insurance and and dental insurance coverage.
They also sought damages and paymnt of attorney’s fees.
The NLRC decided to dismiss the
cases, finding “lack of merit” since “in the absence of proof,
there was no illegal (constructive) dismissal in the cases at bar”
and saying the complainants were paid their “correct wages”
based on contract, “holiday overtime, overtime pay and vacation
leave, thus negating their claim of non-payment.”
“Complainants failed to
adduce evidence on the fault or malice on the part of the
respondents to warrant the award of damages or attorney’s fees in
their favor,” said the NLRC.
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